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• # 



Mrs. JULIA McNAIR WRIGHT, 


Author of “Priest audNuu,” “Jug or Not,” “The BestFellow intho World,” &c. 




* 






> j i 


PHILADELPHIA: 

PORTER & COATES, 

i 

d^ 










Entered according to Ait of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
PORTER AND COATES, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington. 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER L 
What his Parents did for him 

CHAPTER 11 
What the Nurse did for him 

CHAPTER ILL 

How Aunt De'bby helped Matters . 

CHAPTER IV. 

Literary Assistance 

CHAPTER V. 
His Friends lend a Hand 

CHAPTER VL 

The Young Ladies mend Matters 


X 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VIL 

PAGB 

The R*Mjy Fathers strengthen the Position • 115 

CHAPTER VEIL 

The Law does its Part x 33 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Devil does his . • « • • 1 5 1 

CHAPTER X. 

P. reaches a Crisis 1 &9 

CHAPTER XL 

Police Court to the Rescue 187 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Asylum undertakes P. . . . . 205 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Reasonable Principles applied . . . . 223 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Society renders a Verdict 241 

CHAPTER XV. 

And so does the Coroner 259 


CHAPTER FIRST, 


®9{rat feis fannls Mi fat lim. 

“ Born of Fortunatus’s kin, 

Another comes tenderly ushered in 

To a prospect all bright and burnished : 

No tenant he for life’s back slums ; 

He comes to the world as a gentleman comee 
To a lodging ready furnished.’’ 















CHAPTER FIRST. 

What his Parents left him. 

say that one is born with a silver, or a 
golden spoon, in one’s mouth, has been sup- 
&& posed to assert a rare good fortune. Has 
▼ anybody ever questioned whether the human 
being so dowered, may not be most miserably 
strangled by that beautiful spoon ? Even if the vic- 
tim does not swallow the spoon himself, the nurse may 
strangle him with it, or some amiable enemy fill it 
with poison, or admiring friends may hold its shining 
bowl so near the heir’s eyes, that all that is good and 
grand in nature or in grace may be shut out ; and the 
hopeless prey of a splendid fortune may see nothing 
but his own distorted image in it. 


( 13 ) 


14 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 

There are spoons and spoons— to be born with the 
golden one, is not. always to be happy, nor good, nor 
wise. We are moved to these reflections on spoons 
in general, by meditating on the history of a youth 
whose spoon was of the very goldenest. 

To begin as early as is possible with our hero— notice 
him ; he is too young for the ceremony of an intro- 
duction ; but you see first a cambric robe, the length 
two yards and a half; trimming Valenciennes; tucks 
thirty-four ; moreover you behold a blanket, of which 
the ground-work is French flannel, but that is hidden 
by silk embroidery — some poor wretch made it wearily 
for the trifle of twenty dollars— for she who bought it, 
although extravagant, was not above making “ a bar- 
gain” with the seamstress. In the folds of the 
blanket you may find i something ’ with a soft bald 
head, a toothless mouth, and a wrinkled red phiz. 
I give you my word it is a genuine human baby six 
hours old. The doctor calls it a fine child, and 
although it resembles the supposed ancestral ape, the 
nurse is ready to take oath that it is the “ finest in- 
fant she ever laid eyes on.” Being a nurse, her 
veracity is unimpeachable, and we think of this new 
baby in the superlative ever after. 

Thi3 lady in brown silk gown and lace cap who 
holds the fresh arrival, is Aunt Debby Dean. The 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


15 


tears which have swollen Aunt Debby s eyelids and 
reddened her thin face are not the gushings of joy 
which welcomes this heir to the house ; they are the 
agonized outbreaking of a most bitter woe. 

This elegant little apartment that will only remind 
one of a jewel case, so costly and dainty is its fitting 
up, is the ante-room to that quite royal bed-chamber, 
whence comes now and then a subdued and very 
solemn whisper. The door is partly open ; the rich 
Axminster carpet is scattered with clothing tossed 
about in haste, and towels dropped here and there ; 
the lace and silken drapery of the bed has been 
twisted high up out of reach ; on the toilette tables 
bottles are open, or broken or carelessly upset. 
There is a tread of feet, and oh, they are carrying out 
< something,’ which but now was 4 some one !’ Here is 
a wide board draped in a linen sheet, and a figure 
stretched out upon it stiff and still ; there is another 
linen covering above this form, and you can see where 
the face is outlined, and the hands are clasped, and 
the feet are stiffly placed so near together ; the dra- 
pery has been pulled aside, here is a mass of black 
curls falling down, a deadness even now dimming their 
silken sheen : as they pass along, striving not to jar 
their burden, a corner of the linen sweeps over the 
red face of the new-born babe that lies on Aunt 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


16 * 

Debby’s knee, and there is a quick cry at the strange 
chill. We hope no more of that mother’s mantle, 
than this one cold corner, fell upon her child : but 
time will show. 

As these bearers go cautiously down stairs, pre- 
ceded by the nurse, to carry to the grim stately parlors 
the mistress who now cares not a whit for their splen- 
dors, the servant maidens left behind begin to pick up 
garments and napery, incontinently wiping off their 
flowing tears on whatever chances to be in hand. Out 
of the region of their short sobs and ejaculations, 
walks a thoughtful middle-aged man and stands before 
Aunt Debby, gazing at the bundle on her lap. It is 
not the father of this babe — oh no, there has been a 
double trouble in this gorgeous home. It is the doc- 
tor, the family physician, in whose brain our story 
is now being dimly foreshadowed. 

This is not the first time Aunt Debby’s tears have 
fallen ; she has had cause to do a deal of weeping in 
her day, and she strives now to check the expression 
of her grief. Aunt Debby cannot understand mat- 
ters. She has not even “ a good hope for her dead.” 
She could not possibly tell you whether it is God’s 
will or the Devil’s that has just been done. But 
there is one thing whereof the certainty never falters, 
she has a living, a loving and a sympathizing Redeemer. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


17 


lie has been with her in six troubles — he will yet 
succor in seven ; and though Aunt Debby is no grand 
saint, though she has done, and, alas ! will do evil in 
her day, she has a sure refuge in the Saviour of sin- 
ners. 

“ Here is a young heir, Miss Dean, ” says the 
doctor. 

“ Ah yes,” sobs Aunt Debby, “ and all his great 
property is not worth to him what parents would be : 
poor orphaned lamb !” 

“He is an heir to more than money.” 

“ Truly, indeed. To immortal life ?” suggests Miss 
Debby cautiously, as thinking she may be mistaken in 
her inference, for she knows the physician is not a 
“church member.” 

“Well, to that — I hope; but I had not that in my 
thoughts. It is my custom to take time by the fore- 
lock, and no time is better than to-night to speak my 
mind to you about this boy.” 

“I feel that I need your advice, I am sure,” says 
Aunt Debby, upon whose maiden shoulders a terrible 
responsibility has fallen. 

“ You are doubtless aware, that traits of character 
— appetites — sins even — may be hereditary.” 

“ Heaven forbid !” shrieks Aunt Debby. 

“ But Heaven has not forbidden, has rather ordained : 


18 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


and humanity is no loser, for the good can descend as 
well as the evil; and for the evil, in its indulgence 
and in fostering it for transmission to our children, 
we are ourselves to blame, while great virtue and 
genius are God’s gifts.” 

Aunt Debby felt all at once as if this so costly bur- 
den that she was holding, were a coiled serpent, and 
that she must spring up and cast it away. She 
reproached herself severely, for in the child’s veins 
ran the only blood akin to hers. 

“It might be better,” said the doctor, “that this 
child had been heir to the penury of some sober ditch- 
digger, than that it had entered into possession of all 
this magnificence, and with it the taint of parental 
intemperance.” 

“ Ah, poor dear, how much better for it to die !” 
wails Aunt Debby, before whom that word Intemper- 
ance stands in letters of fire. 

« It is not at all likely to die,” said the doctor ; 
“ the question before it is in what manner it shall 
live. Over the child’s infancy you will have rule. 
Now, Miss Debby, of all things remember that the one 
great danger of this child’s life will be alcoholic drinks ; 
and you must keep it from them with a vigilance that 
shall never cease. There is every hope in a correct 
training : if you begin right and go on right, our baby 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


19 


will end right. You may better exp Dse your little 
nephew to every contagious disease that stalks abroad, 
abandon it to the tender mercies of the city charities, 
or give it for adoption to the pickpocket guild, than 
waken any slumbering appetite within it, by the use 
of alcohol !” 

‘‘Doctor,” replies Aunt Debby with dignity, “you 
know I would do nothing of the kind.” 

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of 
cure,” retorts the doctor ; “ and you must not only be 
circumspect yourself, but you must see to it that 
others are so.” 

The body of the dead mother had been laid in state 
in the parlor ; the blaze of the chandeliers had been 
softened to a pearly twilight; the nurse and the 
housekeeper began the usual exploration for that 
mysterious race of cats, who are supposed to haunt 
the dead, and they then retreated to the hall, care- 
fully closing the doors. 

“ Mrs. Jillet,” said Mrs. Bently the nurse, “ I’ve 
borne more this day than human nature can survive. 
I’m completely beat out ; and being as our orphan 
has his aunt to look out for him while I take some 
refreshment, I quite owe it to myself to dc so.” 

“ Ah, you may say so,” responded the housekeeper, 
rejoicing in the prospect of a gossip. “A morsel of 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


20 

cold fowl, a. few pickled oysters, and a cup of cof- 
fee, may quite set you up, if it is twelve o’clock at 
night.” 

“Mrs. Jillet,” said Mrs. Bently with pathos, 

“ I must have something even more refreshing than 
that.” 

These two excellent women having settled their cap 
strings and seated themselves in the housekeeper’s 
room, on either side of a table covered with the 
refection Mrs. Jillet had suggested, the countenance 
of Mrs. Bently still expressed a morbid dissatisfaction 
with life. 

“Mrs. Bently dear,” urged Mrs. Jillet, “ is there 
anything more I can get to set you up with ? 

“ I quite owe it to my responsible position,” said 
Mrs. Bently, who it seems had a conscience, “ to have 
a sup of brandy, if there is any in the house.” 

“ If there is any in the house !” cried Mrs. Jillet, 
falling back in her chair and lifting both hands; u if! 
Why I may say, feeling it right at this solemn hour 
to tell the truth, that this house is founded, and built 
up, and walled, and roofed with brandy — and similar. 
I do not know many things you could ask for here 
and not get, but I’ll take my affidavit if there was one 
thing missing it wouldn’t be brandy,” added Mrs. 
Jillet with some pride, and unlocking a closet in the 


A MILLION TOO MU 01.. 


21 


side of the chimney, she took out a decanter of the 
precious fluid. Mrs. Bently judiciously added some 
of this nectar to her coffee, and her face began to 
brighten. 

“ I feel that I owe it to our precious orphan to 
know something of the history of his dear parents, 
remarked Mrs. Bently, 44 don’t you see it in that light, 
Mrs. Jillet ?” 

44 1 believe it is my duty to tell you what I know, 
to make you feel at home with the blessed babe, and 
open your heart to him,” quoth Mrs. Jillet. Mrs. 
Bently hastened to say that 4 her heart was open 
already.’ 

44 You mentioned the brandy,” said the house- 
keeper, 44 and you bear in mind what I replied to you. 
Miss Debby’s father began life in the liquor business. 
He had a constitution of iron, every nerve in his 
body was steel, his heart was as cold as a lump of 
lead, and I will say for him that he had as much 
brass in his countenance as ere a man ever I saw. 
Mrs. Jillet paused and gave a few moments to memo- 
ries of this metallic individual. 

44 Once he said to me, 4 Mrs. Jillet, you’re exorbi- 
tant on the matter of salary.’ He did indeed. As 
you may suppose, such a man didn t drink his own 
liquor — but he sold and sold, until truly for riches a 


22 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Jew is not to be named in comparison of him. When 
he died and left the money to Mr. Luke Dean, all the 
son he had, truly he left a pretty sum ; and though 
Mr. Luke put a good deal of the stock down his own 
throat — made quite a wholesale matter of it — the 
money has held out, and our orphan’s got a million if 
he’s got a penny.” 

The nurse took more brandy, and the orphan’s 
consequence grew in her esteem. 

“ Every one do say that Mr. Luke was not his own 
man for drink, when he shot his brains out three 
months ago, in the second story front chamber, where 
you may see marks of it this minute, he then standing 
at the dressing bureau, and that being the reason 
Missis had the back room at this present occasion. 
Yes, Mr. Luke was not in his senses when he did that 
deed, poor soul — may God forgive him ! — A fine figure 
of a man, and of his property, to put a ball through 
his head and fall without a cry ! I heard that shot, 
Mrs. Bently, and how I lived I can’t tell.” 

“Neither can I — I’m sure you need a taste to keep 
your spirits up thinking of it. There, that’s right. 
Now about the mother, my dear ?” said the nurse. 

“ It is not for me ever to say a lady got drunk, 
and that lady as handsome, and amiable and alto- 
gether well dressed, as the Missis ; but she took a 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


23 


deal of brandy, wine and similar, for medicine, and 
sometimes she slept heavy and sometimes was cross, 
as is not to be wondered at, poor dear — and now she’s 
dead! It’s very hard on me, Mrs. Bently.” 

“ So it is — ah ! what a dispensation, a mysterious 
dispensation ! And she took a good deal, you say ?” 

“A deal ! ah, oceans of it. After Mr. Luke shot 
his poor dear brains out, she hardly was hertelf, what 
with opium and brandy, having no other comfort. 
I saw Miss Debby go down on her two knees to her, 
entreating of her to put it by. More than that, Dr. 
Roxwell, says he, ‘Mrs. Dean, this will be your 
death, and your child’s death. If you go on this way 
I’ve no more hope for you than for a dead man. Not 
one more drop, not one.’ He says that a dozen 
times, if he said it once ; but lo, she could not heed 
him, and here’s the end. She’s gone, just as he said 
she would ; but the babe’s safe, thank fortune ! Truly, 
Mrs. Bently, when I laid her out there in the parlor, 
and thought how he’d gone, and she after him in 
three months ; why, I considered the way she came 
here just married, three years ago, and they had a 
wine supper, and everybody toasting and praising; 
well to mind it just broke my heart ! And on the 
top of that, you asking me if we had any brandy in 
the house — as if we ever were without — it quite cut me. 


24 


A MIL! ION TOO MUCH. 


You may pass me that decanter again, I’ll try one 
more spoonful to warm my bones.” 

“ Oh ! I was sure you had it, Mrs. Jillet, it was 
only a way of asking, you know — me being bashful. 
But I must go up to our orphan now, poor dear! 
I will feel it my duty to give up my other engage- 
ments, and stay with him these few years, his mother 
being gone, and his life so important, because of the 
property.” 

“ Do you that,” said Mrs. Jillet cordially : she had 
discerned in Mrs. Bently a kindred spirit. 

We have now learned the family history of this 
babe which Aunt Debby has faithfully held for some 
hours. She has not noticed the lapse of time, for she 
has been reviewing the painful past. Aunt Debby’s 
heart is heavy. Her father — dying Christless ; her 
brother, so much her junior that he seemed to her a 
darling son, dead by his own crazed act ; his beauti- 
ful and accomplished wife — quite as surely a suicide, 
though she would not call her one. Ah ! Aunt 
Debby’s beloved dead were not in heaven, and their 
memories were no benediction. Miss Dean recalled 
the doctor’s caution, and was fully resolved never to 
permit in the baby a development of its parents’ 
vices. Still, having been brought up in an atmo- 
sphere of liquor-drinking and liquor-selling, with every 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


25 


penny in her pocket the result of that lawful traffic, 
we cannot expect that Aunt Debby had very clear 
views of what Dr. Roxwell affirmed to be the danger 
and crime of liquor making, selling, and drinking. 
In other words, the world called the doctor a fanatic, 
and Aunt Debby was conservative ; still she was deter- 
mined to have her nephew a moral, sober, gentle- 
manly, intelligent, and she truly hoped and prayed, a 
thoroughly religious person. 

When next day Mrs. Bently conveyed to the 
anxious Aunt Debby that it would be quite possible 
to retain, for a suitable consideration, her services as 
head nurse for the orphan of the house of Dean — 
Aunt Debby clutched at that possibility as drowning 
people grasp at whatever comes nearest the hand. 
An under nurse, a fine young woman in a gay gown, 
was engaged to relieve Mrs. Bently in her onerous 
duties, and Aunt Debby was supposed to be head over 
all ; though this theory was soon proved to be but a 
pleasing fiction. 

Miss Dean having a life interest in the house and 
its furnishings — indeed she had lived in this home for 
thirty years — she continued therein unmolested with 
her servants, the nurses, and the orphan. The parents 
having died intestate, there were provided, in behalf 
of the infant Dean and his million, three adminis- 
trators and two guardians ; each of these gentlemen 


26 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


had a legal adviser to instruct him in the duties and 
liabilities of his position ; Miss Debby also retained 
an attorney, supposed to look after her interests, and 
to prevent any undue advantage being taken of the 
heir. The Orphans’ Court was expected to see to it 
that neither administrators, guardians, attorneys, 
aunt, or babe overreached each other in their anxious 
care for the million. 

It was also evident that the child should have a 
name. Had he lived “when Rome was,” he would 
have been called Posthumus. To save ourselves the 
long research and anxious debating that the matter 
of the name caused Aunt Debby, we will imagine him 
duly conveyed to church and christened Posthumus 
Dean, and as this name is so long as to be cumber- 
some to our pages, we will content ourselves with 
calling him P. P. is a Problem ; he has Property ; 
his life holds Promise ; Dr. Roxwell accuses him of 
having been born with a Predisposition. If guardians, 
friends, teachers, society, and the laws of the land do 
an honest part by P., there is no reason why his 
name shall not stand gloriously high as any on the 
mighty roll of fame — he will found a church ; endow 
a college ; write a book ; establish a great business ; 
live a philanthropist and die a Christian. We have 
great hopes of P. The doctor says he has a tremen- 
dous vitality, and we know he is heir of a million. 


CHAPTER SECOND 


§$|at tjjt glum pP Jjim. 


“ Born in wealth, and wealthily nursed; 

Capped, napped, papped, and lapped from the first 
On the knees of Prodigality.” 




CHAPTER SECOND. 

What the Nurse gave him. 

HILE many a poor babe gets on during tbe 
first months of its life, 'with no care but 
that hastily given in odd moments by an 
over-worked mother, our infant P. was 
provided with two nurses, and Aunt Debby had serious 
thoughts of engaging a third. Aunt Debby, with the 
responsibilities of a baby resting on her soul, was 
an object of compassion to all right-minded people. 
She sat in nervous excitement watching Mrs. Bendy 
and her assistant, Ann, wash and array the little 
heir. At last she spoke her mind. “ Mrs. Bendy, 
we must get our baby a wet-nurse. 

“Not for tbe world 1” cried Mrs. Bently, who 
wished no one to dispute her supremacy, or have a 
right to the services of Ann. “ Wet-nurses is danger- 
ous. We can feed the child beautiful. Why it is a 

Srue pleasure to see him eat.’ 

“ But I’ve heard that it causes wind on the stomach 
nd colic, to feed a young babe,” said Miss Debby. 

“ Oh that’s nothing. Suppose there is wind, why 

( 29 ) 



30 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


a sup of gin and sugar, with a drop of hot water, wjL 
cure the colic immegit ; and the child will fatten on 
it wonderful,” replied Mrs. Bently. 

“ Gin? But Doctor Boxwell don’t approve of gin.’ 

“ Don’t ? well, all the wisdom of the world ain’t in 
doctors. Let me tell you, ma’am, doctors that do 
know recommend gin. I’ve heard them frequent — 
besides I've had the care of some two hundred infants, 
and I ought to know.” 

“ I want everything done for the best for this child/' 
said Aunt Debby anxiously. 

“ That’s the very reason I say don’t get a wet- 
nurse. I’ve known children to take the scrofula, or 
the tatter, or the clipping mania from them kind.” 

“ What’s clipping mania ?” demanded Ann, alert 
for information. 

“It is picking up things, quick like,” explained 
Mrs. Bently. 

“ 0, some sort of slight of hand,” said Ann. 

“But, Mrs. Bently,” urged Aunt Debby, “you 
know we might get a person who had no troubles of 
this kind.” 

“ One never knows the harm that may be in them,” 
said Mrs. Bently sententiously. “ Now when you 
feed a child milk or farina, or cracker water — there 
it is in the cup before you — you know all about it ; 


A MILLION TOC MUCH. 


31 


and if it is ailing, a few drops of cordial, a spoon of 
gin, or a taste of brandy in water, will cure it at once, 
and that you know is harmless, and will never leave 
a trace of evil behind. Indeed, ma’am, one can’t be 
too careful of babies.” 

Aunt Debby yielded to Mrs Bently’s superior wis- 
dom ; but while some infants get through the little 
oft-recurring ills of babyhood, physicked only by dame 
Nature, the small Dean had a medical attendant 
ever on the watch over him, and that physician was 
Doctor Roxwell. The doctor unexpectedly appeared 
in the grand nursery, with a healthy young foster 
mother in his wake. Our orphan was slumbering in 
Ann’s lap : he was too precious to lie in his cradle in 
the day-time, so the nursemaid held him while he 
slept, and Mrs. Bently sat over against her, severely 
watching to see that she held him properly. 

Mrs. Bently was a woman of resources ; since she 
could not prevent the installation of Mrs. Green, she 
considered that the best thing to do was to cajole Mrs. 
Green into subservience to her wishes. She therefore 
welcomed her with effusion, declaring that her arrival 
“set her heart quite at rest.” She also aroused little 
P., and handed him over to his new attendant, at once, 
secretly hoping that the child would rebel, and refuse 
to receive tb3 proffered service. Unfortunately for 


32 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Mrs. Bently, the orphan took to his legitimate refresh- 
ments with avidity. 

Thereafter the nursery at the Dean mansion was a 
spectacle for mothers. Aunt Debby walked through 
it once in two hours, looked about, helplessly con- 
scious of her own ignorance, and departed. Each 
of the three nurses was mortally afraid of doing more 
for the child than absolutely belonged to her office. 
They differed on every point concerning this boy — 
what he should wear, how his three hairs should be 
brushed, what should be the temperature of his bath 
— and when, how often and how far, he should be 
taken out for exercise. 

On account of these discussions it not unfrequently 
happened that the babe’s bath was one day very chill, 
the next day almost scalding ; he was supposed to be 
born with an antipathy to water, because he invaria, 
bly shrieked when he was getting washed. 

Mrs. Green thought P.’s mouth should be rinsed out 
with clear water ; Mrs. Bently thought it should be 
sherry and water ; Ann thought it should not be rinsed 
at all ; all these plans were tried. Amid disputes as 
to whether nine, one, four, or intermediate hours, were 
the most suitable for P. to be taken out, about half 
the days in the week he remained in altogether. 
When he did go out the procession was a sight to be 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


33 


seen. Little P. had a state coach with gilding and 
lace, ruffles and satin ; a coach for a baby king. In 
this he was laid, enveloped in a down-bordered cloak, 
his head covered in a cap and his face smothered 
under a zephyr veil. Ann in her most radiant chintz 
went to wheel the coach. Mrs. Green in her new 
poplin walked alongside lest little Master should get 
hungry ; and Mrs. Bently, grand in black silk dress 
and shawl, followed after to see that all was right, 
carrying in her pocket a bottle of cordial, for fear 
her charge should be attacked with cramp. 

When evening came Mrs. Green found it needful 
for her health that she should go out for exercise, 
also to visit her aged mother, and her own infant. 
On these occasions Mrs. Green surreptitiously divided 
with her own flesh and blood, the nutriment which 
she had duly sold to our orphan, for part of his 
million. 

While Mrs. Green was thus nefariously absent, 
Mrs. Bently, “ to keep her spirits up,” devoted herself 
to sitting with the housekeeper, where gossip was 
seasoned with drops of “brandy and similar,” to quote 
Mrs. Jillet. 

Ann was thus left with our P. ; hut this girl’s special 
passion was novel reading. With much secrecy she 
therefore administered to her nursling certain doses 


34 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


of “ Doctor Morbus’ Universal Baby Panacea,” and 
while he slept profoundly thereafter, Ann’s innocent 
mind was devoted to the mysteries of “ The Robber’s 
Cave,” “The Black Bandit,” “ Death and Danger,” 
and other useful and enlivening works, part of the 
swarming progeny of a “ free press.” 

When Mrs. Green was introduced to the Dean 
household, she was a tidy, cheerful, healthy woman, 
who had lived plainly, worked hard and slept soundly, 
all her life. To her, ale, beer, porter, and London 
stout were unknown. 

“ Indeed you must drink something of the kind, or 
you’ll never be able to nurse our baby,” said Mrs. 
Bently. 

“ I have always done well by my own children 
without.” 

“ 0, that’s different,” said Mrs. Bently. “ Come 
now, you must do your duty ; and suppose you don’t 
take to the taste, it will come more natural by and by. 
I d as soon go without my dinner, as have it without 
a glass of ale. Some take tea, but I’m weakly, and 
need what is stronger. It will be very unsocial not to 
drink with me and Ann.” 

Thereafter among the bills sent in by our orphan’s 
guardians to the administrators of the estate, on 
behalf of said orphan’s household expenditure, was an 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


35 


item of three bottles of best ale daily, for the nursery 
table. Under this regime Mrs. Green grew fat and 
florid. “ I told you so,” said Mrs. Bently with tri- 
umph. “Now you see that ale agrees with you.” 

Aunt Debby was one of those gentle natures who 
must have some one to love, and her affections were 
wrapping themselves about little P. There were 
many hours when the dear lady planned how she would 
guide and train her child “ when he grew old enough 
she did not know that her training should have com- 
menced with its first shrill cry of greeting to this 
world. Aunt Debby also did a great deal of praying 
for her nephew — on her knees she pleaded the case 
of the orphan ; but she failed to watch as well as 
pray. Not only did Aunt Debby fail to watch, but 
she had a somnambulistic fashion of not seeing, or 
realizing the importance of what passed before her 
eyes. 

“ What are you giving Baby ?” Aunt Debby asked 
of Ann. 

“ Just catnip tea, ma’am.” 

This was harmless truly, but a suspicious odor came 
up to Aunt Debby’s nose. “ Seems to me it smells of 
whiskey.” 

“ Just a little Mrs. Bently put in — she always does 


it.” 


36 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


6i But why ? What is it good for ? Is he sick ? 

“No indeed, ma’am, healthy and well; but this is 
to keep him so — He’s always had it, ma am, and it is 
good for — why pretty near everything — I guess.” 

“0,” said Miss Dean, blankly, and went her way, 
unenlightened, unsatisfied, convinced of her short- 
comings, but sure, or trying to be sure, that all must 
be right with a baby who had a doctor and three 
nurses to take care of it. 

Even these guardians could not prevent the child 
having some sharp twinges over the process of teething. 
When the heir was roaring or struggling, or worse, 
lying weakly on Ann’s arm, Aunt Debby would sit 
plaintively sighing, wiping away silent tears, and 
making feeble suggestions of peppermint. Over some 
idiosyncrasies of this infant’s stomach Dr. Roxwell 
was greatly puzzled ; Ann having never mentioned 
the little matter of the “ Universal Infant Panacea,” 
and Mrs. Bently being ready to take oath that “ she 
'iver used the babe accordin’ to medical orders,” the 
doctor failed to suspect the real cause of many physi- 
cal eccentricities. 

Aunt Debby was one day solicitously watching a 
hot bath which the doctor had prescribed for his baby 
patient. “ Is not that something the doctor did not 
mention?” she asked, as Mrs. Bently gave the water 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


37 


a liberal dash of Bourbon, and proceeded to put the 
child’s flannel bandage to soak in brandy. 

“ 0, there are things any good nurse is expected to 
do without special orders. Indeed Miss Dean, there 
is few things about children that whiskey is not good 
for. Take it all in all, I’d as soon be without flannel 
or medicine, or water itself, as without a bit of good 
whiskey for Baby.” 

Aunt Debby, if neither convinced nor converted by 
this reasoning, was most effectually silenced. 

Under Mrs. Bently’s tutelage, Mrs. Green had 
changed greatly. The bottle of ale at dinner did 
not quench a thirst which she affirmed arose from 
nursing the orphan. Of course in these refined mod- 
ern days no nurse thinks for a moment of having 
half a glass of brandy and water on rising, ale at 
noon, and a night-cap in the form of hot toddy. 
These helps to her exhausted nature Mrs. Green 
asserted she must have, for the orphan was a ravenous 
babe “who took all she ate;” if said child also took 
all she drank, he must have been pretty thoroughly 
saturated with the particular style of fluids which 
Dr. R^xwell had prohibited. 

As we have hinted, the morning toilette of Master 
P. was a momentous occasion. Mrs. Bently bathed the 
baby, because <tne of the few things on which meek 


38 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Aunt Debby insisted, was, that no less skilful fingera 
than those of the Head Nurse should perform this 
important task : before Mrs. Bently knelt Ann to 
hold pincushion, powder-box and towels, and to hand 
over the different garments as they were required : 
Mrs. Green sat near, lest the infant should get uproari- 
ous and demand refreshments after the fashion of 
juvenile Micawbers. In full view was Aunt Debby, 
in a dress heavily trimmed with black crape, a deeply 
bordered kerchief, jet jewelry, and a mourning-cap. 
At Mrs. Bently’s hand might ever be seen a goodly 
array of bottles. Bottle 1 was best Bourbon, some 
of which went into the bath, “to make it safe;” bot- 
tle 2 was brandy, wherewith P.’s head was rubbed, 
“to prevent his taking cold, and to make his hair 
grow bottle 3, whiskey of proof, “ to rub the infant’s 
back and make it strong bottle 4, best Hollands, 
to make a spoon of toddy for P., “to keep off the 
danger of colic after bathing.” All this was gra- 
ciously explained to Aunt Debby by Mrs. Bently. 

“ But really,” said Miss Dean, “ it seems to me that 
gin must be injurious to Baby. I should think a 
child’s stomach altogether too delicate for such fiery 
liquids.” 

“But it’s diluted, ma’am.” 

“ Still it is there, a spoonful of it.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


39 


“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. Bently, with the air of 
a martyr, u these things do look strange to those 
who do not know much about babies. It needs a 
person that has had the care of two hundred of them, 
as I have, ma’am, to know how to raise them right. 
It is my duty to do my best by this orphan, but if I 
ain’t permitted, why I ain’t — that’s all. It may be, 
ma’am, as you could find some one who’d suit your 
idee better.” Mrs. Bently spoke as one who greatly 
doubts, and her hint of departure threw Aunt Debby 
in despair. “ 0, to be sure you know best, Mrs. 
Bently ; I would not hinder you from taking any course 
that is proper for our Baby. I leave it all to you, 
and his life is so precious, you know — the last of his 
name, and all this property — the whole family credit 
depends on him.” 

“ True indeed, ma’am, and as I was telling Mrs. 
Jillet, we are bringing him up to be a credit. A 
finer child was never seen. Don’t alarm yourself 
about the sup of good liquor he gets, Miss Dean. Why, 
there’s the little Dutch babies as are just reared on 
lager and other things of the kind, the finest-looking 
children ever one saw.” 

“ I’m sure I didn’t know those people used beer 
and liquor for their children more than we do,” said 
Miss Dean. 


40 


A MILLION TOO MVCIL 


“ Perhaps, ma’am,” replied Mrs. Bently with an 
injured air, “you haven’t been to Chicago like as I 
have. Was sent for there, to nurse a baby, ma’am, 
and I saw the children, just toddling about, that could 
drink off their mug of lager, and scream like Injins 
after it, ma’am ; they were so fat they were broad as 
they were long, and their cheeks had the red on them 
like red paint. 0, I’ve seen something of babies, I 
can tell you, ma’am.” 

About this time Dr. Roxwell began to look 
suspiciously at Mrs. Green. She had been a favorite 
of his, because she was an honest, bright, well-tem- 
pered woman, with a light step, and a merry smile. 
She was growing indolent and heavy-eyed ; the pink 
on her cheeks had deepened into purple ; her laugh 
had ceased to ring out clearly as she hugged and 
tossed her little nursling. The old mother who 
stayed at home and took care of the two babies that 
Mrs. Green had left behind her when she went to 
earn good wages from the hungry heir, had come one 
evening to Dr. Roxwell. 

“ Doctor dear, there’s something amiss with Jane. 
She s not herself at all. I’m fearing somebody is 
leading her off to drink, and indeed I always heard 
that was an unlucky house for liquor. Sure it’s built 
with the price of souls, and the young couple went a 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


41 


Dad way, may the Lord pity them. But look after 
Jane, doctor dear, for her husband is off to the mines, 
a rare decent lad, and if she goes a wrong gait she’ll 
break his heart, not to mention me own.” 

The busy doctor tried to look after Jane. He talked 
to her, but she denied the whiskey accusation flatly. 

“ It is the high living and easy work, doctor. I 
never take a drop, barring a sup of ale when I’m 
faint, that boy is so hungry, doctor. Sure he eats as 
if he was worth a million.” 

The weather was warm and the doctor dared not 
make a change for Master P., although he accepted 
Mrs. Green’s assertions with qualifications. 

Mrs. Green slept in the nursery with P. in a crib 
by her side, and used to lift the little one into her 
bed at night. There was a black bruise found one 
morning on this orphan, which set Aunt Debby nearly 
wild, and for which no one could account, that is, none 
but Mrs. Green, who would not say that she had 
dropped this little unfortunate between the bed and 
the crib, she having taken an unusually large night- 
cap just before she took the child. Perhaps it was 
this mystery that made Aunt Debby restless at night, 
and careful overmuch, as she thought of this small 
morsel of humanity, her nephew. 

One night in October, the little one being then a 


42 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


year old, Aunt Debby wandered into the nursery. P, 
was not in bis crib. She glanced to tbe bed ; thence 
came the sound of long-drawn snores from Mrs. 
Green, but no baby was visible. Aunt Debby cau- 
tiously moved the bed covers, and there only a pair 
of quivering fat legs could be seen from under the 
heavy arm and shoulder of the nurse, who had rolled 
over on our baby. Mrs. Green had come very near 
ending our history then and there. When Aunt Debby 
succeeded in prying her off this unfortunate child’s 
head, he was seen to be black in the face, and nearly 
lifeless. 

The little confusion at Babel was nothing to what 
reigned for the next few hours in the Dean mansion. 

Early in the morning Mrs. Green having awakened 
with a clear conscience, and utter ignorance of the 
events of the past night, the doctor pronounced the 
baby weaned, and sent the nurse home in a carriage, 
with as much good advice as she could carry. 

That evening Dr. Boxwell discussed our orphan 
with his cousin Nancy. Nancy being old was deaf— 
for ten years no sound had penetrated her tympanum. 
The doctor liked to talk to her : he had the convenience 
of soliloquy without its absurdity. Cousin Nancy 
always looked at him fiercely, nodded her head fre- 
quently, and never disputed anything, however wild. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


43 


“I wonder if P. is doomed?” said the doctor. 

Is his ruin a foregone conclusion, because of his 
parents’ intemperance? If he escapes a hereditary 
danger, have the measures of his nurses insured his 
destruction? If he is free of injury from parents and 
nurses, what is society going to do for him ? P. is not 
at all to blame thus far, he is helpless. Will he ever be 
to blame however he turns out ? If there is in public 
sentiment or in civil law any power to save him and it 
fails to be exerted, and he goes to perdition, shall we 
condemn P. or the power that was not applied? 






CHAPTER THIRD 


Jlunt gcbbir jjdpb Stitttm. 


“You can believe 

Sordello foremost in the regal class 
Nature has broadly severed from the mass 
Of men, and framed for pleasure n 



































































. 



























CHAPTER THIRD. 


What Aunt Debby did for him. 

f ABY P. by a miracle survived the reign of 
his three nurses. As we have shown, the 
last achievement of Mrs. Green was to suffo- 
cate the Heir of a million. 

Aunt Debby put in Mrs. Green’s place a silver 
salver, a silver bowl, and a silver spoon so heavy that 
the poor Heir found it very difficult to handle. 

Mrs. Bently’s rule lasted a year and a half after 
Mrs. Green’s departure. The longer she remained 
the greater privileges she arrogated to herself, and 
it was not unusual to find the nursery filled with the 
head nurse’s friends, all of whom were getting treated 
at the expense of the orphan. On one of these occa- 
sions Aunt Debby sent for little P. to be brought 
down to the parlor that she might exhibit him to an 
admiring acquaintance. Our P. was a fine-looking 
child, tall and strong. Usually very bright irt face 
and speech, Aunt Debby delighted in his gracious 
way of receiving his guests, and in the acuteness of 
his replies. But on this unhappy day all was changed. 

( 47 ) 


48 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


The Heir stood with round, wide-open, owlish eyes 
and a stupid stare ; his under lip fell, his forefinger 
was thrust aimlessly into his throat, he swayed about 
with his head on one side, and replied to every word 
with an inane grin. 

“ Dont be silly, my boy,” said Aunt Debby. “ Why, 
how you act ! where is our little gentleman ? Come,* 
be polite and speak to us.” 

But it was evident that P. was doing his very best, 
and that it was bad enough. The child had no con- 
trol over his staring eyes and drivelling mouth. Aunt 
Debby gazed in horror. This idol of her soul had 
become idiotic; it was apparent that he had been 
allowed to fall, and the jar had ruined his brain. 
She shrieked to a servant to run for the doctor, and 
laying her boy on the sofa hung over him, clasping 
the idle hand that would go into his mouth, and look- 
ing tearfully into the round silly eyes, her soul 
shrinking with horror at the queer “ he ! he, ha !” 
the only sound which the usually bright and merry 
P. seemed capable of producing. 

The doctor came with speed, and Aunt Debby met 
fiim, wringing her hands, tears streaming over her 
face. 

“ 0, doctor, our boy is idiotic ! My child’s brain 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


49 


is ruined ! Oh the bright lovely darling — look at him 
— he knows nothing at all!” 

The doctor carefully examined his little patient, 
and then without a word went up stairs. 

“ Can’t you help him, doctor? Will he always be 
this way ?” cried Aunt Debby, when the physician 
a'gain stood by the sofa where P. lay. 

“ He’ll come to himself, Miss Dean. The child is. 
drunk. That fiendish nurse up stairs has been feed- 
ing him with whiskey, and her company have let him 
eat the sugar out of their glasses of brandy and water 
until he is at the silly stage of drunkenness ; and to tell 
you the truth, Miss Dean, I had as soon have seen him 
idiotic ; this business is much worse than you imagined. 
I have advised that Bently to leave as soon as possible, 
and you had better go and enforce that by an order. 
If she stays much longer here, there will be a Sensa- 
tion Murder in to-morrow’s paper, and I shall become 
known to fame.” 

A baby drunk ! This gibbering infant idiot was 
the victim of King Alcohol. Do you wonder that 
with the memory of that sharp pistol-shot which had 
heralded the father’s self-destruction, with the thought 
of that young mother’s wretched fate, the soul of 
Aunt Debby grew sick within her, and that gazing on 


50 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


her baby’s unmeaning face she entered into the bitter 
Valley of the Shadow of Death ? 

“ It is possible that the injury to his mind may 
be permanent,” said Dr. Roxwell, “ or he may be 
restored. But look you here, Miss Dean. The use 
of liquor renders one physically likely to crave it ; it 
opens brain cells that do not close. Now tell me, if 
you car , will this child ever be held morally account- 
able for his sins if he becomes a drunkard, or will 
the parents who poisoned him before his birth, or that 
wretched woman who has thus imposed on his infant 
helplessness, be accountable ?” 

“0, doctor,” cried Aunt Debby, smitten with a 
sudden dread, “will I be accountable ! I wanted to 
do what was right, to train him well — and see what 
he has come to.” 

“ And how far have you trained him, Miss Dean ?” 

“ Already ? Why he is too little ; I have been 
waiting for the time to come.” 

“ You have let many precious hours go by,” said 
the doctor. 

P. came out of his imbecility. Next day he seemed 
“ as good as new.” Mrs. Bently was gone, and the 
Heir did not appear to miss her greatly. Aunt Debby 
said that Ann was a kind, well-meaning girl, more- 
over “ young and biddable ;” and as Ann was supposed 


A MILLION TOO MWB. 


51 


to have gained experience during her tutelage to Mrs. 
Bently, she was now given full sway over the nursery, 
with directions not to allow little Master any beer, 
brandy, or other intoxicating liquors. 

On the second day of the new reign the screams 
of the small lord of the mansion pierced every ear. 
Miss Dean was receiving morning callers, but as the 
outcry rose more furious each instant, she was forced 
to excuse herself, and go to ascertain why so great 
wrath existed in this celestial mind. 

“Deed, ma’am,” said Ann, who sat with a flushed 
face by the nursery-table spread with conventional 
boiled mutton and rice pudding, “it is just because 
little Master wants his beer, ma’am, which the doctor 
said I wasn’t to give him.” 

“ That baby cry for beer !” exclaimed the aunt. 
“ Why, the taste of it ought to be odious to him.” 

“ Maybe it ought, but it ain’t. No indeed, he likes 
it far better than milk or water — and me offering of 
him both.” 

Our P. had been performing a war dance about the 
room, whooping madly at intervals. He now pointed 
an accusing finger at his maid, and stammered, “ She 
had ’urn !” 

Aunt Debby looked about carefully, and discovered 
an empty beer-glass hidden under the table. 


52 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Ann saw that it was time to defend herself, and she 
said, “ You wouldn’t expect me to go without a glass 
of ale, ma’am, after taking it regular this two years ?” 

“ You must either go without or lose your place, ' 
said Aunt Debby, rising to more firmness than she 
had ever dared assume with the august Bently. 
“ There is nothing of the kind to b<* used in this 
nursery, or in the boy’s presence.” 

The impression made on Miss Dean’s mind by the 
doctor’s remark that she had lost many precious hours, 
was deepened by a brief visit from a lady with two 
children, one a little younger, the other a year older 
than the infant Millionaire. These children, to Aunt 
Debby’s astonishment, were able to repeat texts and 
hymns, and reply intelligently to many questions on 
religious subjects and Scripture history. They spent 
some time on Sabbath listening to Bible stories, 
answering questions and learning something new. 

“It is really time to begin with P.,” said Aunt 
Debby. “ I had no idea such small children could learn 
anything. He can say his prayers at least after this.” 

A look of wonder and horror crossed the lady’s 
face, as she found that the glib-tongued P. had not 
yet been taught to pray. But it was ignorance, not 
irrelig ; on, on Aunt Debby’s part ; and that night and 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


53 


every night thereafter for years, Aunt Debby bent 
over her boy’s crib, and had him repeat his prayer. 

P. had been attracted by the instructions given to 
his playmates, and went with them to their mother’s 
knee to learn. The elder baby concluded to turn 
tutor to his child- host, and carefully taught him that 
Samson was the strongest man. Next day he tried 
to show off his pupil’s proficiency, and asked P. “ who 
was the strongest man ?” 

“ Ginger !” cried P., who had paid a sly visit to 
Mrs. Jillet’s store-room, and been nearly strangled as 
the result of his explorations. 

Aunt Debby was quite ashamed of her nephew, 
and began to teach him forthwith. 

At five years old you could not find in all the city 
a finer-looking child than Mr. P. when he took his 
walks with Ann. He held himself like a king ; his 
large dark eyesi, and flowing masses of black hair — • 
just like the curls that had hung about his dead 
mother’s face — challenged universal attention. Ann 
rejoiced in arraying him in velvet suits, patent- 
leather boots with red tops, plumed hats, and frills of 
choice lace. She felt that some of the grandeur of 
her young charge was reflected upon her. We must 
also say for Ann that she never unduly restrained the 
boy, but let him play how, what, and with whom he 


54 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


woall, provided he left her to an undisturbed flirta- 
tion with her young man. 

Miss Debby, being of a mild unsuspicious nature, 
placed implicit faith in Ann ; and when the claims of 
society took her away from home in an evening, our 
lady went with an easy mind, believing that her dar- 
ling was quite secure with his maid. 

Though Ann was willing to charge the Heir high 
wages for her attendance upon him, she did not feel 
that his claims upon her time and attention were 
equal to those of her young man. She began to have 
a penchant for evening walks, finished by an oyster 
supper, and for going to the theatre to see the per- 
formance of the plays, which she had hitherto been 
content to read by the light of midnight gas. 

Ann tried first one way and then another to get 
our P. to sleep. The “ Universal Baby Panacea” 
had failed to be soporific : after a heavy dose P. was 
as wakeful as ever. 

Miss Debby had gone away one evening, and Ann 
^as longing to get off to a dance with her young man. 
She hit upon the expedient of frightening the boy to 
sleep. She put him in bed, and sat down to read— 
her voice was a loud monotone — and she began with 

A True Account of one Count Le Hoy, who was 
guilliotined in Paris, and thereafter walked with his 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


55 


Head in his Hands to the Cemetery of St. Genevieve.” 
Her tones jarred on P.’s nerves; his eyes started 
with horror; his fat limbs shook under the bed-covers, 
but no sleep came. Ann kept looking at him impa- 
tiently. Her first story ended, she took another, 
deepening the tragedy of her expression. “ The 
Quarry Murder, being the dying confession of one 
Wild Walt, who killed eighteen different men.” 

P. was making various little groans and starts 
during this reading ; he crouched among the pillows, 
and his black eyes glared about, seeing murderous 
hands with knives or pistols, in every shadow. 

“ Why don’t you go to sleep, child ?” demanded 
Ann, when this mild tale was concluded. 

“ 0, 0, I can’t !” 

“ And why not, do tell — it’s long past time !” 

“0! I can’t, I’m — I’m thirsty.” P. scorned to 
say he was afraid. 

Ann wisely concluded that he must be frightened 
yet further. “ Come to the bath-room, and I’ll get 
you a drink,” she said ; so the trembling child slid out 
of bed, and in bare feet and little white gown crept 
with her through the hall, clinging to her dress with 
all his might. 

“ I reckon there’s ghosts in this house,” said Ann* 
coolly. “ There ought to be — a man was killed here 


56 


A MILLION TOO MUCH 


once — ah ! did you hear anything ? I thought I did. 
Here is your drink.” 

“ Where, where was the man killed?” gasped P., 
taking a sip of water. 

“ Why you ain’t a bit thirsty — come hack to bed 
with you. Where was he killed? Yonder in the 
front-room. Ah, don’t you see something white ? I 
do. Ah-h-h!” 

The wicked girl darted off at full speed, intent 
only in thoroughly frightening her charge, who sped 
after her, yelling with terror. 

The noise brought up Ann’s young man, who 
waited below. He came cautiously up stairs and 
looked in. P. was clinging to Ann’s neck. 

“ Can’t you get that little fool to sleep ? Well be 
late. Why don’t you give him some laudanum ? It 
is the best thing in the world. Try it,” cried the 
interloper. 

“ I don’t know if there is any, and — I’m afraid of 
it.” 

“ Pooh ! a teaspoonful won’t hurt him a hair. Hunt 
it up and give it to him, I say, or I’ll go without you. 
You are as big a fool as he is. Being up so is what 
hurts him.” 

Ann searched the medicine closet for laudanum, 
and found it ; and although some careful druggist had 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


57 


marked it “ Poison ” in red letters, she poured out a 
spoonful, and not a small one, for poor P., who took 
it on condition that she would lie on the bed beside 
him. The poor little fellow crept close to the 
treacherous creature, and held by her hand until he 
got into a deep sleep, when Ann at last was able to 
steal away from him and go to her dance. 

Aunt Debhy never went to the nursery when she 
got home late at night ; , she took it for granted that 
all was right there. She did not come this night 
when her nephew’s sleep grew deeper and deeper, and 
the life of the child-heir trembled in the balance. 
Well perhaps for him, if out of the dread shadow of 
the coming years he had escaped by some short and 
easy road to God’s peace and rest. People thought 
he trod a golden path ; they envied the hoy his wealth ; 
hut all behind him lay the blackness of sorrow, shame, 
and death, and the future hung dark as a winter 
storm ; and what a maze was all the present to this 
baby’s feet ! They could not waken P. next morning. 
His breathing grew fainter and slower still ; such a 
strange pallor fell over his face ; and his full lips were 
purple with a dark circle around them, like that 
which rimmed his fast-shut eyes. For the errors of 
nurses One and Two, Dr. Roxwell had been called 
in haste. He was sent for now by Aunt Debby, who 


58 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


was on the verge of distraction ; while Ann, with 
beautiful candor, was replying to close questions 
under the heads of beer and brandy : — 

“ Doctor, is it a fit ? is it whiskey again ? oh what 
is it ? will he die ? our beautiful boy !” 

Dr. Roxwell went straight to the point. He 
looked at the child, at the guilty Ann, and more than 
guessed what had been done. He spoke fiercely : — 

“ Girl, tell me how much laudanum you gave this 
boy ! Tell me truly, so that I can save him ! Tell 
me, or I will have you hung for his murder !” 

Ann fell on her knees with a cry, and faltered out 
her agonized confession. “ Will he die ! will he die !” 

“ Yes, he will die, I haven’t a doubt ; it has taken a 
wonderful hold on him. Die — and you killed him.” 

Poor Ann, she paid dearly for that bad act, for 
Dr. Roxwell had a patient raving in brain fever 
at the hospital, long after Master P. was racing about 
jubilant and strong. Of course the child saw no 
more of Ann, and Dr. Roxwell, quite in despair 
of nurses, suggested a nursery governess. The 
guardians were consulted in due form. They decided 
that it would not injure P. to learn his letters, and 
Miss Dean was kindly accorded permission to choose 
the nursery governess to suit herself. It was one of 
the compensations such as are ever occurring in this 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


59 


life, that after the direful age of Bently, Green & Co., 
came a good, pious, loving girl to guide this poor child, 
who, despite his money, seemed born to misery. 

About this time Dr. Roxwell informed his deaf 
cousin that he had begun to believe in haunted houses 
and in doomed races, and he thought the Dean home 
and lineage came in that hapless category — no one 
that went near them prospered. He said this because 
he had that morning been called to a little babe, 
which he found dead. It belonged to Mrs. Green, 
once P.’s nurse, and the cause of its death was evi- 
dent to the doctor ; the statement was that it had 
fallen out of bed and been killed by the fall ; hut 
Dr. Roxwell was firmly of the opinion that it had 
been pushed out by the tossings of its drunken 
mother, and had chilled to death on the bare floor, 
on that winter night. The doctor shivered as he 
thought of the little cold creature wailing its life 
away, its mother too drunk to hear it cry. 

Mrs. Green had been travelling a downward path 
these years. That “ decent lad,” her husband, 
looked a heart-broken fellow, and the dollars he had 
made in mines melted like so many snow-flakes, while 
his children were neglected, and the old mother on 
whom the burden of cares fell, grew grayer and more 
wrinkled every day. She came to the doctor w T ith a 


60 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


piteous appeal. “ Can’t you do something for our 
Jane, sir? Ah, it was you got her yon drinking 
place, had luck to the day and hour, though you 
meant no harm, sir, but kindness all. True, then, 
heaven has no bed for the like of the head nurse who 
tempted my girl off to drink, and it is only a ruin of 
a home is left us ; and you know she’s a soul, doctor 
dear, and what’ll become of that if she goes on?” 

“ I might help her some if she would help herself. 
If she really wants to leave off drinking, perhaps I 
could make it easier for her.” 

“ Willin’ is it ? Sure she’s not willin’. And wants, 
do you say — why doctor, dear, she wants nothing but 
drink. Oh, why ever did I let her go to that house, 
where the curse of the Lord lies heavy for the blood 
and tears and broken hearts and ruined souls that it 
made in making money !” 

The doctor had to hear many plaints like this from 
the old mother, and some terse, sharp words from the 
miserable husband, who one day would ask if he 
might not put his wife in the Insane Asylum, and 
another would grimly threaten to kill himself and be 
out of his woe. 

“ I wish,” said the doctor to his deaf cousin, “that 
I had never seen the Dean house or any one belong- 
ing to it ! Yet after all I like and pity Miss Debby ; 


A MILLION TOO MUCH, 


61 


and I think that boy is one of the most winning and 
beautiful creatures that ever God made.” 

On Sabbath this child, whom the doctor so much 
admired, was left in the morning with his governess, 
in the afternoon with his aunt. The governess 
found her pupil a “rich and respectable” heathen. 
Aunt Debby’s teachings had not been of a style to 
take hold of his youthful mind. Miss Gale tried a 
new system ; she procured books of pictures and 
Bible stories, cards whereon were texts in such beau- 
tiful letters that it was quite a pleasure to learn 
them ; and more than all, she could sing ; and, instead 
of Ann’s wild love-songs, the nursery now rang to the 
notes of those sweet hymns of childhood, which 
Christian mothers have loved and sung these many 
years. To Aunt Debby’s surprise, P. also began to 
go to church, and to behave quite well during service ; 
this Aunt Debby considered the most remarkable 
thing she had ever heard of; her nephew being only 
five years old. 





































CHATTER FOURTH 


©tjjcr sis tana 


u His childhood was one eternal round 
Of the game of going on Tickler’s ground, 


Picking up gold in reality.” 
















































CHAPTER FOURTH. 



Culinary and Literary Assistance. 

_B> 

I T was a great satisfaction to Aunt Debby that 
her boy “took kindly” to bis letters. He 
conceived an affection for the alphabet at 
first sight; his exploits in spelling b-a ba, 
and b-o bo, were the admiration of the household, 
and neither pains nor payments were spared. Aunt 
Debby unfortunately knew no better way of reward- 
ing her little nephew’s precocity of intellect, than by 
pampering his appetite. 

We all know the story of the “ Three Boys and 
their Three Cakes.” Miss Dean followed the exam- 
ple of the model mothers in that entertaining narra- 
tive ; and when P. achieved a scraggy A on his slate, 
or advanced to another syllable in his spelling, she at 
once repaired to Mrs. Jillet and proposed some eatable 
as his recompense. 

Since P. concluded his first year, he had been giv- 
ing birthday parties ; or at least his aunt gave them 
for him. Mrs. Bently inaugurated this custom, in 
order that she might have a grand gossip and supper, 
e ( 65 ) 


66 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


with all the stylish nurses in the vicinity. The nurse 
had said that a child with P.’s expectations could not 
begin too early to learn to exercise an elegant hospi- 
tality ; and the strength of custom was on her side ; 
for, as Aunt Debby knew, fashionable little children 
had parties ; and our aunt was one of those women 
who are always following precedents, doing as others 
do, and so saving themselves the trouble of thinking. 

Miss Gale, the governess, did not feel at liberty to 
give Miss Dean advice, and was obliged to be silent 
over what she considered the enormities of the 
juvenile party. 

Aunt Debby said she did not wish to be over-fash- 
ionable in her party. She knew that children ought 
to keep early hours ; late eating was bad for their 
tender constitutions. P.’s guests, therefore, on his 
fifth birthday, came at six, supped at eight, and went 
home under convoy of nurses or big brothers, at ten 
o’clock. 

When these thirty children sat down to the table 
they were a wonderful company; the eyes that 
should have been fast shut in sleep, were gazing, 
greedily at dishes piled high with nuts and fruit ; at 
plates and baskets of rich cakes of all kinds; at 
bright clear wine, and brandy jellies; at birds and 
pat^s, and culinary nonsense of all kinds. The little 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


67 


girls wore rings and bracelets, necklaces and pins, 
shining silk and white puffings of lace ; and the little 
boys were all velvet and glitter, and one while 
they imitated grown people, and talked nonsense 
about the food and the clothes, and then forgot them- 
selves, and fell in tiffs and rages, and smacked each 
other’s pretty little countenances with their teaspoons, 
and pulled each other’s hair, then went to sobbing and 
sulking, were carried away, coaxed and comforted, 
and brought back restored. 

When all had eaten to repletion, and lolled back in 
their chairs, balancing their knives on the teacups, 
playing tattoos with their forks, and looking generally 
puffy and distressed, having taken too much lobster 
and chicken salad, and too many oysters ; the butler 
put by every plate a tiny glass, and half filled it with 
wine. The small master of the feast was not unversed 
in wines ; he knew what he liked, and just now “ golden 
sherry” was his favorite, so that was the wine given. 
When all were served, Master P. clambered to a 
standing in his chair of state, and in a manner care- 
fully inculcated by the butler, and in a form of speech 
originated by that potentate, drank the health and 
happiness of his young friends. The little images 
drank their wine with zest, though there was some 
hard winking to keep back the tears ; and then the 


68 


A MILLION TOC MUCH. 


glasses were half filled again, and a six-year-old gen- 
tleman who had been drilled for the occasion, stood 
up to propose the health of Master P. and many 
happy returns of the birthday. 

The young orator was confused by so many listen- 
ers, and failed in his speech; his sister, interfering 
with the mal apropos criticism common to sisters, 
cried, “ Happy Geordie, happy ; you said wnhappy.” 
“No, I didn’t thay it, Thusy,” lisped Geordie; and 
all his little friends giggled at his embarrassment, 
crying, “You did, you did!” 

“I don’t care,” cried Geordie, goaded to wrath; 
“ I don’t care if he has any more of ’em or not !” 

“ Oh, yes, we do ; he has such nice parties !” 
shouted the children ; for already poor P. was fol- 
lowed for the loaves and the fishes — for the gleanings 
of his million, and not for himself. 

Aunt Debby came to the rescue, and drank her 
nephew’s health, so the children got their other half- 
glass of wine. 

After supper, Aunt Debby tried to have them play 
“ blindman’s-buff,” but they were too full and too 
cross. Three or four of the wee things could dance, 
and Miss Gale played tunes for them, in the midst of 
which entertainment the master of the festivity was 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


69 


found sobbing behind a sofa in a truly deplorable 
manner. 

“What is the matter, my darling?” cried Aunt 
Debby. When the cause was made apparent, it 
proved to be that P. could not dance; he was ir 
agonies of envy and — indigestion. 

“ Indeed, Miss Gale, this is a great oversight,” said 
Aunt Debby ; “we will have the dancing-master come 
and teach him. Don’t cry, my dear, you can dance 
your next birthday.” 

Miss Gale had a wakeful night. Her charge was 
restless and feverish ; he had ill dreams ; suffered 
with nightmare ; talked nonsense ; and shrieked in 
his sleep. Next morning, his head ached ; of course 
he had no appetite, and could not get up. Miss Gale 
had had time for meditation ; she went down to a late 
breakfast with Miss Dean, and ventured to suggest 
that children’s parties were unhealthful — were likely 
to make the little ones bilious and dyspeptic. 

“ They do seem injurious,” said Miss Dean ; “but 
then other people have them, mothers who ought to 
know what is right ; and I can’t be hard on our boy. 
He will not have another for a year.” 

“ But he will go to several. If he averages one a 
month during the year, and each one has> this effect* 
I should th’nk he would become a sickly c> Id. Then, 


70 


A MIL LI )N TOO MUCH. 


Miss Dean, these parties are bad for the temper. The 
children get wildly excited, and you saw how cross 
they were.” 

“Yes,” said Aunt Debby, tranquilly ; “ I was sorry 
anything happened to vex my child. We must have 
him taught to dance, and then he will enjoy it next 
year.” 

“ And, ma’am,” insisted Miss Gale, “ I think the 
parties are bad for the morals of the children. See 
how envious they are of each other’s appearance or 
accomplishments — how jealous and covetous. The 
parties foster hate and spite, instead of love; and 
don’t you think it wrong to give children wine ?” 

“ 0, yes,” said Miss Dean. “ I never wish it to be 
given to our boy. The doctor forbids it. But a glass 
of sherry once a year for his birthday, is another 
matter ; isn’t it ?” 

“ But if that is repeated a dozen times a year at 
the parties of other little friends, are not the habit 
and the love of wine likely to be fostered ?” 

“ Dear, dear, I’m afraid so indeed,” said Miss 
Dean. 

“ And the sherry was not the only thing to culti- 
vate that taste. Those peaches were strong of 
brandy ; and there were three kinds of wine-jelly on 
the table. I know very few think as I do ; but safe 


A MILLION TOO MUCH . 


7 . 


side is best side, and I should advocate giving children 
milk to drink, plain food to eat, childish plays, and 
early hours ; they would be happier and better for it.” 

“It is a very perplexing question. What can I 
do ?” sighed Aunt Debby. 

“Find out your duty, and go straight on and 
do it.” 

“ Oh, yes ; but what is duty, and what would folks 
say ? and ought I to set myself up against the cus- 
toms and opinions of my friends ? It is very trying 
for an inexperienced woman like me to have a child 
to rear. I really do want to know my duty, and I 
hope to be able to do it. Miss Gale, when you go out 
to-day, would you be kind enough to engage a very 
respectable dancing-master to come here and give 
that dear child lessons?” 

Are we surprised at Aunt Debby? We must con- 
sider that hers had been no religious education ; the 
influence of her family had been all for worldliness ; 
she knew literally nothing of any other earthly life 
than the one she led among wealthy friends, who 
bounded all their expectations with this earthly 
horizon. 

Aunt Debby had found a something better, loftier, 
than these associates ; but she had no idea of living 
up to the full extent of her duties and privileges as a 


72 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


child of God. Indeed, she was ignorant alike of duty 
and privilege. There were many who had as high 
fortune and position as Miss Dean, in that her native 
city, who were children of the light, walking in the 
blessing and beauty of their eternal home ; but they 
were not likely to come within the circle where the 
rich liquor-dealer’s family moved. The paternal busi- 
ness brought its curse in many ways to Miss Debby, 
and here was one of them ; under its doleful shadow 
she groped painfully along toward heaven, learning 
the lessons of God’s providence very slowly and 
stupidly, seeing hitherto with half-enlightened eyes, 
as did he who saw men as trees walking. 

And now this woman, who had no fixed principles 
to guide herself, no steadfast views of duty, no keen 
discrimination between right and wrong, had put into 
her hands the training of a child — of a child unhelped 
by prayerful strivings of a godly parentage, poor off- 
spring of parents who had committed a double suicide, 
and who now stood dizzily balanced between safety 
and destruction ; great good possible, great ruin 
probable ; he could be saved by some strong guard- 
ianship of parents, teachers, nurses, friends, society, 
law, and they seemed likely to fail him one and all. 

As for money, P. was like the heiress of the house 
of Kilmansegg, 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


73 


“ Gold, and gold, and gold without end ; 

He had gold to lay by and gold to spend, 

Gold to give, and gold to lend,” 

and the worst of it was that he was kept fully in* 
formed of his golden virtues and prospects, and was 
taught to greatly plume himself thereon. The coach- 
man blessed him as the owner of the horses, and told 
him what they were worth a span ; the butler dis- 
played the family silver, and told him no one else 
could claim an ounce of it ; the books in the nursery 
wiled him with tales of the good hoy who was very 
rich and scattered his money by handfuls among poor 
children who were insufficiently grateful. 

As Aunt Debby sent for the dancing-master because 
other children danced, and gave parties for her boy 
because other boys had them, so she lavished toys 
without number, and pocket-money in abundance, on 
her child. To get a toy, to delight in it one hour, 
weary of it the next, and make it the subject of scien- 
tific experiments the third, was an every-day affair. 
Miss Gale saw the nursery floor and tables covered 
with the debris of playthings on which had been spent 
sums that would have been fortunes to many a fam- 
ished mother whose life was one long “ Song of the 
Shirt,” or to bareboned, scarecrow babies turned adrift 
to pick up their own living among the city scavengers. 


74 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


“ Miss Dean,” remonstrated the governess, “ I think 
so many toys, and liberty to break them up, will make 
him wasteful and extravagant. Would it not be well 
to limit him, and give him some responsibility about 
the use of what he has ?” 

“ 0, I could not limit the dear boy. It would seem 
like sheer robbery, keeping him out of his own.” 

“ Still, I think he ought to be taught self-restraint 
and self-denial,” urged Miss Gale. 

“ That sounds so cruel,” said Aunt Debby. “ He 
will have trouble enough, and be denied enough, when 
he grows up. Let him have everything he wants 
now.” 

And so our hero was prepared for the stern reality 
of life by being indulged and pampered and made the 
veriest little Sybarite in the land. 

Had Miss Gale been wise enough to suggest to Aunt 
Debby that God, whose love is highest of all, and per- 
fect in all its exercise, does not train his children for 
their warfare and their crown by yielding to their 
every desire and fostering their every whim ; if she 
had shown her how to take the dealings of the heavenly 
love as the pattern of her culture of her child, she 
might have made many dark things clear, and many 
crooked places straight. Miss Gale did not thus know 
how to take up her parable ; she could only suggest 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


75 


facts, or state her theories, and Miss Dean, replying 
vaguely, went on in the old way. 

If P. had by any chance objected to his lessons, he 
might have been permitted to grow up a dunce ; but, 
from some innate affinity with books, or because his 
teacher had the rare art of making study fascinating, 
P. kept steadily at his appointed tasks, and during 
them, enjoyed the — to him — exceptional luxury of 
being thoroughly well kept in order, and having some 
one to obey. 

Outside of the short daily sojourn in the school- 
room, life was to the boy a chaos. He was flattered, 
coaxed, indulged. If his appetite failed, the house- 
hold stores were ransacked for some dainty to lure his 
wayward palate. If one game ceased to be amusing, 
all the world must invent another ; when one toy was 
destroyed, others sprang up in the fashion of the phoe- 
nix, each invariably better than its predecessor. 

“For a child so pampered,” sighed Miss Gale, “I 
can see nothing future but the misery of disappoint- 
ment. The poor wretch will have worn out life by 
the time he is twenty. Pleasure will have palled, only 
dissipation will be left him, and then death.” 

Being less philosophic, Miss Dean had none of these 
foreshadowings; she had supposed that money was 
ever a blessing for which God was to be thanked, 


76 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


without considering that whether money is a curse or 
a blessing depends on how it is applied. 

Still, in view of the fact that Master Dean is at the 
mercy of administrators and guardians (of their own 
interest), we need not he greatly fearful that he shall, 
on attaining his majority, have the temptation of the 
possession of great wealth. 

As Doctor Roxwell was very frequently called in 
to rescue our boy from the dangers consequent upon 
over-eating, and as he piloted the young man safely 
through the perils of measles, whooping-cough, and 
other evils that pursue unsuspecting youth, he of 
course came to understand the heir pretty thoroughly, 
and concluded that he was a hoy who would be good 
if he could, and would have practised virtue if he had 
had any encouragement to do so. 

“ The fact is,” said Doctor Roxwell to his cousin 
Nancy, “ if that hoy had been horn to honest poverty, 
he has a spirit in him that would rise to conquer 
obstacles, and he would work his way through the 
world like a man. Trying to make a useful citizen 
of him in the way Miss Dean is taking, is like en- 
deavoring to train an athlete by wrapping him up in 
velvets, feeding him on sweetmeats, and putting him 
to sleep in down in a room shut up to otto of roses 
and other disguises of impure air. The question is, 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


77 


What is responsibility, and who is responsible ? and 
can that boy be anything great or good with every- 
body so amiably working against him ? The best thing 
that could happen to him would be to be stolen by a 
gipsey.” 

Here the doctor’s deaf cousin nodded vehemently 
at the right moment. 

During these early years P., having exhausted 
every pleasure of his existence, resolved on a treat 
quite new, and in the course of a walk with Mrs. 
Jillet, insisted on stopping to have his boots polished 
in the street, by a bootblack. The boy he beckoned 
to do this service was of his own age, a sturdy tatter- 
demalion, with streaks of French blacking over his 
keen countenance. P. put his well-covered foot on 
the lad’s box, and down on his knees fell the child 
who was born to laborious independence, chuckling as 
he rubbed and brushed, at the ornate dress and lofty 
airs of “ the little swell.” 

The two were foster-brothers ; this kneeling shoe- 
black was the whilom babe who had secretly shared 
with P. the abundance of the maternal fount, during 
Mrs. Green’s evenings out. If it had not Deen for 
P.’s pecuniary ability to hire nurses and furnish them 
with ale, beer, and brandy, Master Green in clean 
and well-mended corduroys might now have been 


78 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


going daily to the common school ; he surely would 
not have had cause to blush for the maudlin female 
who staggered up, with, he thought, designs on his 
earnings, and he held one pocket tight shut while he 
rubbed P.’s left boot, and was prepared to fight or fly, 
as the case might demand. It was not Teddy Green 
who filled the drunken creature’s eye just then. She 
seized her old crony, the elegant Mrs. Jillet, by the 
hand, and cried, “ Come now, it is long since you and 
I had a treat together ; let’s go in yonder, and I’ll 
stand a glass of gin each, if Teddy ’ll lend me the 
money ; or maybe the child I nursed like a mother 
will give me a shilling for old days’ sake, forby he 
don’t remember them aaid she clasped the disgusted 
young gentleman in her grimy, foul-smelling arms. 



CHAPTER FIFTH 


u to |ts ,fricni>s jjcIjJtir fim nn. 


“ I have lived so long I am weary of living; 
I wish I were dead, and my sins forgiven ; 
Then I’d be sure I’d go to Heaven ” 




































































. 





















































































*- 






































.. ' - ■ 




















































CHAPTER FIFTH. 


His Friends lend a Hand. 

RS. BENTLY felt that she owed it to her 
friendship to Mrs. Jillet to pay occasional 
visits to the housekeeper, and in doing so, 
she was careful to choose such times as were 
not likely to throw her in Miss Dean’s way. “ I must 
say,” said Mrs. Bently to Mrs. Jillet, “ as I don’t 
feel able to meet that lady in friendship. It showed 
very little consideration for my feelings, and very 
little care for that blessed orphan, to break up our 
agreement all of a sudden so, just because of a little 
accident. Well, I lay it to Dr. Roxwell, a man as 
is not the least a gentleman. Do you know, Mrs. 
Jillet dear, I saw him stop in the street the other 
day, and have that miserable Green — our wet-nurse, 
you know — put in his own carriage and sent home, 
she being too drunk to walk. I don’t call that the 
act of a gentleman as has a proper opinion of his- 
self.” 

“Well, indeed!” cried Mrs. Jillet, passing the 
cake and wine, which greatly endeared her to Mrs. 

( 81 ) 



F 


82 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Bently. “ Do you know, she stopped me and young 
master in the street the other day, and he being the 
most pertinacious child I ever set eyes on, it took me 
all the way home making up tales of her being crazy, 
to put him off.” 

“ For my part,” said Mrs. Bently, “ I’ve no patience 
with people who go on as she does. When you and I first 
asked her in here to a refreshment with us, she was as 
innocent as a milkmaid, and had never tasted a thing 
stronger than a drop of tea, and now she’s in the gut- 
ter, or the station-house, half the time olf and on. I 
did hear that they’d got her reformed once or twice, 
but she didn’t stay so. I’m quite disgusted with her. 
I never look at her if I meet her ; and don’t you do 
it, Mrs. Jillet; we’ve nothing to do with that sort, 
thank fortune !” 

“Not I, truly,” said Mrs. Jillet, proudly. “Here 
I’ve lived this twenty years — and a gentleman’s house- 
keeper is no poor body, let me tell you. I’ll have 
nothing to do with her. It is quite enough I treated 
her to toddy and egg-nog time and again. There’s 
some people will go on from bad to worse. The but- 
ler’s coming in after a bit with some brandy and honey 
mixed, would make one’s mouth water.” “Very good,” 
replied Mrs. Bently, settling herself complacently. 
“ I’ve a good boarding-place, Mrs. Jillet, I can 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


83 


recommend it to you, anytime you happen to get out 
of service.” This with secret malice. 

“ That’s not likely,” said Mrs. J., tirtly. “ They 
can’t do without me.” 

“ So I thought,” said Mrs. Bently. u And you see 
how it was, and so it will be with you, my dear.” 

“ Not a bit of it. That young gentleman rules here, 
and I know how to get on with him. He gets a deal 
here he don’t get elsewhere. Wasn’t it last Saturday 
I let him in to suck a julep through a straw, and that 
pleases every child. The governess is a hit strict with 
him, and his aunt overmild ; for he’s a stirring lad, 
ever after something new, and he finds that something 
in here.” 

Yes ; Mrs. Jillet knew how to charm her young 
master. She took him to the circus, and to the rope- 
dancers, under oath of strict secrecy, and that even 
surpassed the fascination of the occasion when he had 
the organ-grinder and the monkey up in the play- 
room for an hour, and wound out tunes for himself. 
After that, P. sometimes cursed his stars, with good 
reason, because he had not been born an organ- 
grinder. 

Though Mrs. Jillet supposed that her fabrications 
on the subject of Mrs. Green had satisfied Master 
Dean’s inquiring mind, they had by no means done 


84 A MILLION TOO MUCH. 

so. He detailed tlie circumstances to Miss Gale, who 
seized the opportunity to give him his nurse’s history, 
and make her story the text of a small lecture on 
temperance. After some searching, they one day 
found Teddy Green, and had him follow them to the 
gate of a public square, where he polished P.’s boots 
and answered questions. 

“ I stays home when mum ain’t taking on too bad. 
Grannie says it’s all along of going to your house, 
and I wishes she hadn’t gone. Yes ; pop and me has 
ruyther a bad time. The big un, older nor me, he’s 
bound to the grocer, and he gets on pretty good. 
Then the little un, he’s dead, and it’s good luck for 
him, only pap an’ me cried ’cause he froze, you know, 
an’ freezing’s hard on a baby. Not so bad as growin’ 
up drunken, grannie says, and likely ’taint.” 

“ But who takes care of you ?” asked P., with wide- 
open eyes. 

“ Take care of myself,” said the bootblack, coolly. 

“ And don’t you have any one make you wash every 
day, and get up, and go to bed, and take you out, and 
buy you things, and teach you things, and always 
afraid you’ll break your neck or get run over?” 

“Pooh, no!” said Teddy. “Pop buys me some 
clothes winters, and I have a rare time keeping mum 
from selling of them. But I’ll be bigger after awhile, 


A MILLION TOC MUCH. 


85 


and then mum won’t boss me, and I’ll go to night- 
school. Black your boots agin some day ? Oh, my 
eye, that’s a quarter, and I can keep it all. Now I’ll 
have a sausage for dinner !” 

Teddy being gone, our boy was melancholy because 
his lot in life was not that of a bootblack. But he 
was growing fast, and one of his guardians purchased 
a pony for him, and another had him taught to swim ; 
and the butler told him there was an art called fish- 
ing, which he might exercise in country places in the 
summer. 

Aside from these new pleasures, there w'as a high 
art called Patronage, which P.’s story-books taught 
him was the part for rich boys to exercise toward 
small ragamuffins, found lying ^ about loose in the 
streets ; and P. thought it would be grand indeed to 
take Teddy Green into his royal favor. That was 
before the palmy days of newsboys and bootblacks ; 
the good times of the present, when they have lodg- 
ing-houses, friends, and teachers, and not only lay up 
money for themselves in the bank, but are become 
rather a fashionable charity. 

At first P. contented himself with giving Teddy 
money, which the recipient at once laid out in pro- 
visions for a good supper for himself, father, and 
grandmother, remarking to P., “ What we eats we 


86 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


has, you see ; but what we keeps, mum gets, and 
buys gin ; so it’s no use laying up, or trying for 
clothes.” 

Miss Gale’s interest in the Green family grew with 
two or three visits she paid them. It was so sad to 
see that poor old mother taking up again the burdens 
of life, and toiling under them, at eighty years, while 
tears returned to eyes that had long ago worn out the 
power of weeping ; and, with quick-coming sobs, she 
bemoaned her daughter’s fate. 

“ Only to think it!” she said to Miss Gale; “the 
Deans grow rich on the whiskey that ruins my poor 
girl body and soul ! Then there’s the law r , bless you ! 
they fine her, and she being too poor to pay, goes to 
jail, and perhaps to the House of Correction ; but 
they can’t knock the love of drink out of her. They’d 
better fine the Deans, and the like of them, that grow 
rich on it, and these high and lofty ones that sets the 
poor such a bad example. The law had better be for 
stopping the sale — that’s what it had, miss. The way 
they do now is just shutting the pasture-gate after 
the cow’s strayed, and sending for the doctor after the 
man he’s dead.” 

“ Come, now, keep your courage up,” said Miss 
Gale, “and you and I will try and save your 
daughter.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


87 


That’s a good word ; but hope is clean gone. She 
is so full of drink all the time, that there’s no getting 
her to try against it. She used to take spells of doing 
better ; but, after what happened the poor baby, I 
think she drinks to drown thought ” 

There might have been no hope for Mrs. Green, 
had not the Dean carriage, one day, providentially 
run the poor creature down at a street crossing, and 
broken her leg. The coachman had been trying some 
of the butler’s brandy and honey, and had reached a 
mental stage when all the world seemed created 
simply for himself and his horses. Miss Dean and 
Miss Gale were in the carriage, and the governess 
saw that here was the hour of opportunity for help- 
ing Mrs. Green, and making Miss Debby do some- 
thing to repair the wrong wrought in her house. It 
did not occur to Miss Gale that the nurse had changed 
so that the lady failed to recognise her, and that Miss 
Dean was personally unknown to the family. They 
had the injured woman put in the carriage and taken 
to her home, and, when she had been carried in, sent 
the coachman for Dr. Roxwell. The old mother kept 
the poor place tidy; and, when her child had been 
laid on the one bed, she handed two backless chairs 
to her guests, and, while striving to undress the suf- 
ferer. went on bemoaning: “ Here’s more trouble 


88 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


along of rich folks. Rich folks is our ruin. If they’d 
a let us alone we’d done well enough ; we’re first 
poisoned, and then killed by them — that we are.” 

Miss Gale was quietly helping her at the bed, and 
Aunt Debby exclaimed, uneasily, “Why, my good 
woman, you look as if you needed some rich person to 
help you here.” 

“ There’d be no need of their helping, if they had 
not first hindered. My girl would not have been 
knocked down if she had not been drunk. But how 
did she get drunk ? All along of rich people, ma’am. 
She went out nursing a baby, she being nigh as inno- 
cent as a baby, and to the full as sober. Well, ma’am, 
they made a drunkard of her, and turned her out like 
a dog, blaming her too, ma’am, when they ought to 
have blamed theirselves. Well, alack! it is a house 
made up on the price of souls ; and, mark my words, 
ma’am, the Lord’s curse will fall on it heavy enough, 
for we’re not the only ones ruined by them. If the 
making of each of their dollars was the ruin of a soul, 
they’d have a million to answer for. Their name is 
Dean, ma’am.” 

Miss Gale had been plucking at the woman’s sleeve 
to try and check the current of her speech, and now 
cried, “ Hush ! oh, hush !” But Aunt Debby rose in 
dismay. “ Dean ! Dean ! Why, who is this ?” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH 


89 


“ It’s Margaret Green, ma’am ; belike you never 
heard of her. There was two women, named Jillet 
and Bently, who fair forced the liquor down her 
throat, and coaxed her on to drink and drink ; and, 
having ruined her, they scorn her now, and call the 
police if she speaks to them in the streets, forby they 
often sat hobnobbing with her in other days. Well, 
the Lord will judge ’em all ; and now she’s ready, I 
wish the doctored come. I little thought to see her 
lie like this, without even the change of a clean bed- 
gown to put on her.” 

“ Green ! Green ! Why, she nursed my boy, and 
nearly killed him, too. I remember, she did change 
very much in my house ; but I had nothing to do in 
helping her to change.” 

“ Belike, ma’am,” said the old woman, drily, “you 
had nothing to do with hindering it. And the Lord 
often holds us as guilty for not doing good as for 
doing evil.” 

Tears swelled in Miss Dean’s eyes. “I never 
thought of this. I was shocked at her nearly killing 
my poor baby.” “ She quite killed her own, ma’am,” 
interposed the woman. 

“ And I did not know she got the habit at my house. 
0, I cannot tell you how I feel about this ; but we will 


90 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


do everything we can for her now. Will we not, Miss 
Gale?” 

“It goes agin me to take your help,” said the 
mother, stiffly ; “ but we are sore in need.” 

“ And perhaps this will begin a reformation,” said 
Miss Gale. 

“I doubt if she can reform, she takes so much, 
ma’am.” 

“ How much a day ?” asked Miss Dean. 

The old woman held up a quart bottle, which she 
had found among her child’s clothes. “ This full, 
ma’am.” 

“All that!” cried the ladies in a breath. 

“ Ay, all that. And she went to your house with- 
out knowing the taste of it. She learned to love it 
in your house, ma’am. She came away common 
drunkard. Mayhap you know the verse, ‘‘Woe unto 
him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy 
bottle to him, and maketh him drunken also.’ And 
there’s another, ma’am, 4 Woe to him that coveteth an 
evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his 
nest on high. Woe to him that buildeth a town by 
blood.’ Ah, there’s a very many of them, ma’am ; 
I’ve read them time and again, and they’re all true, 
every one.” 

She stood like a weird old prophetess, one skinny, 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


91 


brown hand lifted, the other clutching at the shoulder 
of her daughter, who writhed and groaned on the 
bed, while, before her, mild-faced, richly-dressed Miss 
Debby seemed to shrink away from her denunciations. 

When the doctor came, the two ladies went home 
to send stores of clothes, food, and bedding to Mrs. 
Green ; indeed Miss Gale did more, for she thought 
here was her chance for gaining influence for good 
over that poor sinner, and so returned to watch with 
her and care for her all night. 

Miss Debby cried nearly all the way home. “ She 
seems to think it my fault,” she sighed. “ But how 
can she? I never gave her a drop. I never take 
any myself, except wine for my dinner; and those 
jellies and other things are not my fault ; cook makes 
them, and I cannot interfere. Miss Gale, do you 
think I am to blame ?” 

“ Dear madam,” replied the governess, “ I do not 
wish to be harsh, but it seems to me that, as God has 
set you over a large household, you are responsible 
for what is done under your roof. You should abso- 
lutely know what is going on, and forbid and prevent 
evil. I should say you could interfere with the cook, 
if it was right to do so. She is your hired servant, 
and owes you obedience. If you banished every drop 
'of wine, liquor, beer of any kind, from your family, 


92 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


you would at least know that no more drunkards 
would be made there.” 

“Every drop?” gasped Aunt Debby. “Why, the 
butler, the cook, and Mrs. Jillet would surely leave 
me.” 

“ Others could take their places ; and it is better 
to lose servants than to lose souls,” said Miss Gale, 
sinking into her own corner of the carriage, much 
discouraged, adding : “ It would be a great mercy to 
dear P., and you would feel that you had done your 
part to keep him from intemperate habits. One can- 
not be too careful in training a child.” 

“ To be sure not. I shall talk to P. when I hear 
him say his prayers. But banish everything of the 
kind, and be unlike everybody ! set oneself up against 
society ! How very singular !” 

It was one of Aunt Debby’s misfortunes that she 
was unequal to every emergency of her life. 

One of the first advantages of Mrs. Green’s acci- 
dent was that Teddy was comfortably dressed, and 
sent to school daily, being permitted to exercise his 
talent for boot-blacking during the intervals of study. 

The worshipful Master Dean had a new enjoyment 
springing in the arid desert of his pleasure-scorched 
life, when he conducted Teddy to a tailor’s establish- 
ment, and, after a few hints from Miss Gale, bought a 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


93 


suit of clothes for him ; then went to the bookstore 
for the school-books ; and finally escorted him to the 
school-room, and consigned him to his teacher. It 
was so delightful to have a protege as old and as 
large as himself, and moreover a proficient in boot- 
blacking ! 

Our P. had got to be twelve years old, and had 
outgrown his governess. The guardians said he must 
be sent to school with other boys. He was given a 
gold watch and chain ; he bought desk, portfolio, 
writing-case, botfks, et ceteras unnumbered ; he was 
enrolled among the pupils of Professor Easy, and 
received with the adulation and respect due to a 
million. 

Until the day when it was decided that he should 
go to school, poor P. was ready to die of ennui ; life 
seemed to him unutterably long. When he read in his ■ 
Bible on Sunday to Aunt Debby, that “ the years 
of men’s life are threescore years and ten,” he won- 
dered in his soul what men found to do in all that 
time. He coincided with David’s view, that their 
strength was labor and sorrow. With the rapidity 
of Young America he had rushed through Solomon’s 
experience, and found all vanity and vexation of 
spirit. The horse had become an old story ; he was 
weary of swimmimg; the fish would not bite; and 


94 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Teddy was so sturdily matter-of-fact, that it was no 
fun to patronize him. Story-books had lost their 
entertainment ; he had outgrown tops, marbles, and 
fancy toys; his knife cut his fingers, and his soul 
loathed sweetmeats; he had eaten the good things 
of this life ad nauseam; finally, he wished he was 
dead ; he had worn out the delights of organ-grinder 
and monkey, and would have been glad if he had 
never been born — though that seems a curious pos- 
sibility. 

Now came the glory of going to school, and P.’s 
spirits revived. Alas ! if he had only entered with- 
out the prestige of his fortune ; if he had been put 
on the footing of common boys, and had to work his 
own way up in plays and studies ! But, no ; his wealth 
was around about him like the nimbus of the gods. 
He went and came with royal disregard of rules. He 
was a king above all law. 

When P. went on the playground he was allowed 
to choose the game, and, whether he played well or 
ill, he was applauded — this, not because boys are so 
alive to the claims of money, but they are awake to 
money’s worth ; and P. made every day a treat of 
nuts, confections, nicknacks, and gingerbeer. 

In the school-room, he, singularly enough, got to the 
head of the class when he recited well, and did not 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


95 


come down when he failed. The master never took 
up the accusative against him when he had forgotten 
the dative ; he got perfects whether or no. The tutor 
corrected his exercises, and remarked that they were 
admirably well done ; and no worry was made about 
his learning interest, partial payments, and compound 
numbers, which indeed were likely to be of little use 
as regarded his own fortune — that being in the hands 
of administrators. 





4 


CHAPTER SIXTH. 

|Uto tjrt fmntg faiits |tlplr UJattm. 


“ She showed a face 
With dangers rife.” 


“She spoke, and lo! her loveliness 

Methought she damaged with her tongue; 
And every sentence made it less, 

80 false they rung.” 


G 


4 





« 































































\ 





























» 

V .tiKifr l 



































































CHAPTER SIXTH. 

How the Young Ladies Helped Matters . 

ASTER DEAN wandered out of the regions 
of childhood satiated with petting. Child- 
hood was no fairyland to him ; reality had 
left no room for imagination. One of the 
greatest delights of early days is to invent. It is not 
so much luxury to own a real elephant, as to make an 
elephant of a chair, or a big brother, draped in a 
table-cloth. One does not so much care to be bought 
a balloon, as to strive for days to make a balloon of 
paste and paper. The joy is not to go to the theatre, 
and come home sick and sleepy, but to dramatize 
Mother Hubbard or Dame Crumb , and play it out in 
spite of difficulties, with the barn, or the back bed- 
room, to serve for the grand building with flowers and 
footlights. The trouble with our boy-millionaire was, 
that he never was allowed to long for anything ; never 
to toil to obtain ; never to wait. The Genius of the 
Lamp brought him everything on the instant, and the 
real Aladdin was far less happy tLar the imaginary 



one. 


( 99 ) 


100 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


When from childhood our P. passed to youth, new 
gratifications awaited him, just as likely to be worn 
out as the toys that had gone before. Aunt Debby 
had loved and petted her boy — she idolized the young 
man. P. had a natural gallantry and courtesy, which 
was agreeable to others, and pleasing to himself in its 
exercise ; and Aunt Debby was truly enchanted with 
his winning ways. 

P. did not, like Solomon, give himself “ to seek and 
to search out by wisdom concerning all things that 
are done under heaven.” Learning in “ Professor 
Easy’s Genteel Establishment for Young Men” had 
been made so very smooth and effortless, that there 
had been no pleasure in acquisition. P. rejected with 
scorn the idea of going to college, but gave himself 
quite devotedly to novel reading. P.’s grandfather 
Dean had built a room for a library, but he did not 
know what to put into it. P. solved the difficulty 
readily, and found books to fill the vacant shelves. 
We are sorry that his books were, many of them, of a 
questionable character. 

P. tried some of Solomon’s plans for killing time. 
He had a conservatory and an aviary ; instead of the 
gardens and orchards, he got him fast horses and 
bijou turnouts, and had a morsel of a gingerbread 
house just out of town, which was divided into billiard- 


A MILLION TOO MUCH 


101 


room, supper-room, and smoking-room, and where he 
took friends as fast as himself, for a forlorn sort of 
excitement, which they loathed for its unsatisfactori- 
ness, but did not dare to say so, their pleasure being 
merely ashes and bitterness, although they hid the 
fact in their hearts. 

P. had musical instruments, also like Solomon. He 
ruined a good piano, and made the fortune of an 
Italian teacher, failing to learn to play even the 
simplest exercises. He also had flutes and violins, 
wherewith he made night hideous. As for “ the men 
singers and women singers,” we must not suppose our 
young friend to have been behindhand. He went to 
the theatre and opera with great diligence ; had his 
favorite Stars, of whom he spoke familiarly ; invited 
them to suppers and to drives ; amazed his Aunt Debby 
by bowing and speaking to the strangest acquaint- 
ances. 

For sheer lack of amusement, our young friend 
might have taken to backing prize-fighters, going to 
races, appreciating dog-fights and cock-fights, and 
reading The New York Clipper , had not the ladies 
taken him in charge when he reached the age of 
eighteen. 

P. was rich, amiable, polished in manners, handsome 
in person, and unexceptionable in dress. He was pa- 


102 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


tronized by fashionable young married ladies, and by 
elderly belles. He was too young to think of marry- 
ing, and the girls from whom he could have selected a 
wife were yet in the nursery. He should have been 
in college getting ballast for that light mind of his, 
now setting sail on seas of folly. Instead of being at 
college, learning the “ics” and the “ ologies,” Master 
P. went abroad cultivating the art of flirtation. Here 
was the hour when a good woman, sister or friend, 
might have been P.’s salvation ; instead, women who 
“ meant no harm,” and did no good, were likely to be 
his ruin. Some fair counsellor might have given this 
lad’s life a grand aim ; might have shown him the 
responsibilities of his position ; urged him to a noble 
ambition ; bound him to the practice of sobriety — but 
no such counsellor appeared. Aunt Debby, being as 
weak as she was well-meaning, as soon as manhood 
dawned in her nephew, believed him capable of guid- 
ing himself, and far more judicious than she was ; so, 
flattered his abundant vanity, by applauding all that 
he did, and appealing to his judgment on every occa- 
sion. The friends of the Deans were rich and fashion- 
able, a shining circle of dress and display ; but the 
family of the rich liquor-dealer had not penetrated 
those circles where brain, and good-breeding, and 
moral greatness, stand supreme. There were noble 


A MILLION' TOO MUCH. 


103 


women in the city, any one of whom, as guide and 
friend, could have led P. on to the “ wisdom which 
excelleth folly as light excelleth darkness but, ah 
me ! they did not know our boy. 

For these other sirens, what shall I say of them? 
They were of the ninety-and-nine half-educated butter- 
flies of society, who deem that woman’s only mission 
is to claim admiration by a fair face or a pleasing 
manner. Degrading thus themselves and their own 
mission, it was not to be expected that they could 
elevate young Dean by anything they might say or 
do. These luckless triflers, whose first thought was 
dress, and whose chief desire was to obtain a gaze 
of adulation, learned only in the art of setting them- 
selves off to good advantage, might have served very 
well as lay figures for milliner or mantua-maker, but 
could not have risen even to the place of “ moral wax- 
works.” 

Our hoy ! our poor boy ! He had had no mother’s 
love and true example ; he had had no sister faithful 
in reproof, and tender with comfort. All he knew 
of womanhood was here ; an image more or less fair ; 
the head, a triumph of the barber over impossibilities ; 
the dress, a marvel from the modiste ; laugh trained 
to ripple out at every nothing ; apt in the dance, her 
only learning ; and when she spoke — 


104 


A MILLION TOO MUCH 


“ The rallying voice, the light demand, 

Half flippant, half unsatisfied : 

The vanity sincere and bland ; 

The answers wide/’ 

The young man who learns to speak lightly ot 
womanhood is in sore danger, but so P. learned, and 
we cannot wonder at it. But while teaching P. 
nothing that was good, these young women were sow- 
ing seeds of evil. They spoke of fashionable novels 
of the day ; and P. discerned that their hero was not 
the man of honest worth, hut the reckless, dashing 
blade. They laughed at lavish expenditure ; applauded 
the furious driving that periled life and limb ; and 
thought it a merry joke when the rich man trampled 
on the laws they claimed should only havo been made 
for the poor. But more than this, these girls’ white 
hands filled the wine-cup and passed the decanter ; 
and their eyes shining with excitement of dance and 
music, challenged even such a lad as P., whom they 
made a pet and a protege, to drink again and again 
as toasts went round. 

“ 0, surely, Mr. Dean, you’ll drink with me !” 

“ What ! refuse to drink mg health ? What a 
shame !” 

“ No, sir ; I’ll not let you go in that way. That 
is mg toast, and you are to drink it, like a friend.” 


A MILLION TOO MTJCF. 


105 


Up in the crystal swelled the pink curaQoa, shed- 
ding its color hack on the soft, ringed hand that held 
the glass Presented thus, the maraschino had an 
appeal more potent than its taste or its sparkle. P. 
knew not that each of these bright priestesses at the 
shrine of Pleasure was evoking a tremendous devil 
that slept in his soul. He could not see that these 
taper fingers, jewel-set, were digging wide his early 
grave ; and he did not hear in the tinkle of glasses, 
as the healths went round, the rattle of stone and 
thud of sod upon an unblessed coffin. Here, in this 
glittering sea of fashionable dissipation, P. was lured 
by the song of the sirens of the enchanted and fatal 
isle, and he was no brave Ulysses, to stop his ears 
and go safely by. 

The first time that ever P. got drunk — stupid, 
dead, inert from liquor — was at a birthday ball of one 
of these belles, where all seemed bent on the poor 
lad’s destruction. 

He had not ordered his own carriage to come for 
him, and going home in one with others overtaken by 
the strength of wine, they managed to get him laid 
on his own doorway, but were all, coachman and com- 
panions, too drunk to remember to ring the bell. P. 
might have shocked the genteel neighborhood by lying 
there until morning — for though genteel people will 


106 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


make their friends and fellow-citizens drunk, they do 
not wish them to display their drunkenness in public — - 
he might even have frozen, like Nurse Green’s baby ; 
Dut Teddy Green, going home late from a printing- 
office where he worked, saw him, and was moved, not 
alone by humanity, but by certain affection for one 
who, since childhood, had shown him many favors. 
Teddy succeeded in rousing Mrs. Jillet and the but- 
ler, and by their aid got the youthful master of the 
house to bed. 

Next morning P., on awakening, felt some shame 
and self-reproach, a little of dread as to the habit he 
might be forming. There was a fine chance for some 
one to make an impression, but in this world need and 
opportunity are often far asunder. There was no one 
to speak to P. but Mrs. Jillet. She came in early, 
bringing a glass of brandy and water. 

“And how are you this morning, sir? Here’s 
something to set you up nicely. La, now, don’t look 
like that. Why, it is nothing but what befalls every 
gentleman as is a gentleman. Bless me ! but you’ll 
get used to it ; no use in being so squeamish about 
trifles. Oh, dear me ! you’re not so old yet as you 
will be, and youth is the time for enjoyment, as I 
was telling Mrs. Bently. There now, that’s gone, 
shall I bring you a drop more, or anything else at 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 107 

all ? No ? Best go to sleep again, sir, and you’ll be 
fresh as a lark by noon.” 

P.’s next social disaster arose from the custom of 
New Year’s calls. This is a fashion we inherited 
from our Dutch ancestors in the good city of Man- 
hattan, who went about from house to house to wish 
the inmates a good year, and were received by the 
notable housewives with a treat of “ oley koeks” and 
other goodies. It was a kindly custom ; but, unless 
there is soon a new order of exercises connected with 
it, it will be “ more honored in the breach than in the 
observance.” 

“ Of course, my dear boy,” remarked Aunt Debby, 
“ you will be very careful what you take to-day. I 
was pained to see that many of the gentlemen who 
came to call on me last New Year’s were nearly 
intoxicated.” 

“ To be sure,” said P., indifferently. “ Every one 
knows it is dangerous mixing liquors ; and some folks 
have the vilest trash, which they believe to be good 
port and brandy, because they have paid a big price 
for it. I believe there is not a drop of real port wine 
in the country, except what is in my cellar. Then 
you know, aunt, ‘ many littles make a mickle ;’ and 
when one takes a glass or half a glass, or even a taste, 


108 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


at each of a hundred calling-places, he can’t help 
being overloaded.” 

‘Dear, dear! Well, P., my soil, you must refuse 
at some of the places.” 

“ That is easier said than done. There would be a 
cry, 6 0, you must try my wine.’ ‘ Refuse some one 
else, you won’t find as good champagne anywhere.’ 
‘ Ah, now you are slighting me , and that is too bad.’ 
0, you see, aunt, one cannot refuse any of the dear 
creatures, and so one goes home drunk.” 

“ Why, it is a great pity,” said Aunt Debby, sin- 
cerely. “I wish some way might be found to do 
differently.” 

“The way is clear enough,” replied P. “If only 
the ladies wouldn’t off^r us drink, we would not be 
drunk. What do they have the stuff brought on for ?” 

“ Every one would make remarks on our penurious- 
ness, and lack of hospitality, if we offered no wine,” 
said Miss Dean, with the utmost innocence. 

“ 0, yes ; and for fear we fellows would sneer — 
and we would not, for the half of us would be glad 
from the bottom of our souls if we were not given a 
drop — you women run the risk of sending us to sleep 
in the station-house.” 

“ The station-house ! Oh, my dear boy, don’t sug 
gest such a thing ; you really frighten me !” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


109 


When P., in magnificent array, came down the 
staircase to set out on his round of calls, he had a 
riew of his aunt’s* refection splendidly set forth in 
the second drawing-room. Bottles and decanters and 
glasses glittered on a side-table. Aunt Debby was 
about to do her share in making drunkards. She sat 
in the reception-room, a lovely, elderly gentlewoman ; 
one never saw softer hands, nor a kindlier smile; 
there was not a fault to be found with her appearance 
from top to toe. You might say the same of her in- 
tention ; it was perfectly good ; not a flaw in it ; she 
never meant the least harm ; she lived in friendship 
with all men and women — which is saying a good deal 
for her — and yet from her house flowed one of those 
rills of evil influence which are poisoning the land. 

Aunt Debby went to the window to watch her boy 
set oif. He had a radiant little shell of a sleigh, with 
wolf-skin robes ; his pair of prancing black horses 
seemed to appreciate the beauty of the silver-mounted 
harness, and the clear ringing of their many bells. 
The young owner had mounted for the first time a 
stiff, high silk hat ; his fur coat had been especially 
imported for him, and was a Christmas gift from 
Auut Debby. Beside him sat a grinning black boy, 
in brillant livery, who rolled his eyes, and showed his 
teeth, in the joy of expectation. A stout, respectably- 


110 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


dressed fellow, with a quick step and honest face, came 
by, and cheerily "wished “A happy New Year.” It 
was Teddy Green, who had helped print P.’s morning 
paper this year past. He was going home now, with 
a cap and a shawl for a present to his grandmother, 
who had grown so old that she could only sit and doze 
in her big chair, yet not too old to love Teddy. The 
lad had come out of his way in hopes of getting a look 
at P., whom he sincerely loved. Taking the look, 
with fond pride in his friend’s grandeur, he felt a fear 
that the return might be less glorious than the going 
forth. 

All day long the round of conventional good wishes, 
the well-worn compliments, the trite responses, the 
carefully-conned joke and repartee. P. thought it 
all vastly entertaining, for this was hut his second 
venture in New Year’s calls, and last year he had 
made his essay in company with one of his guardians. 
Long before day was done, P. wished cookery an un- 
discovered art; he was ready to anathematize each 
new invention of the kitchen ; and loathed what he 
felt bound to praise. As to wine and other drink- 
ables of dangerous variety and quality, the fumes 
were mounting to his head. The very elegant mother 
who pressed upon him a taste of her sherry, felt com- 
pelled to notice to herself that the young man was 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Ill 


getting tipsy. Anna Medora, who sweetly handed 
him a julep, wondered if P. would not be a very fast 
young man, and what his aunt would say if he went 
home staggering ; and Miss Mary Amanda, with ten 
years’ experience of belledom, told him her papa was 
quite proud of his Madeira, would he try some ? and 
considered the ways of young men very devious, and 
thought it a pity that they would be dissipated. 

Nightfall before the last call was finished ; and with 
an unsteady step P. went down from the last marble 
portico, wondering what had happened to his hat — he 
having taken the wrong headgear from a servant as 
tipsy as himself — afije to discover that the world goes 
round, if Galileo had not been before him. 

P. was warm enough, but the stinging winter air put 
the black horses on their mettle ; they pranced along, 
and P. performed absurd feats of driving. The splen- 
didly-arrayed black boy had probably been treated 
by admiring maid servants ; he was stupidly intoxi- 
cated, and, giving a chuckle, rolled ignominiously out 
into the snow. P. drove on without missing his boy, 
and, taking any streets where his horses happened to 
go, was at last inspired to interfere with their motions, 
and drove them furiously at a lamp-post, bringing the 
shell of a sleigh to untimely vuin. Away went tho 
horses, dragging a fragment of the wreck. Our P 


112 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


sat on the curbstone, his fur cloak and fashionable 
boots in the slush of the sewer, not moralizing, hut 
laughing loudly at the adventure. 

In an hour’s time, if you had sought the city over 
for Mr. P. Dean, millionaire, ward of two first-class 
guardians and the Orphans’ Court, prey of three 
administrators, and source of emolument to six legal 
gentlemen, you would have found him nowhere else 
but in a station-house ! He was not alone ; he was 
locked up with three other makers of New Year’s 
calls, each quite as respectable and refined as himself. 
A little light struggled in over the door from an outer 
room, and showed P. draggled and rumpled ; hat and 
gloves gone ; boots wet ; fur dripping ; seated on a 
hard bench ; braced uneasily against the wall ; still 
finding the world going round at a perilous rate, and 
himself in danger of being spun off into infinite space, 
falling and falling for ever more. 

“ Them’s a rum set of young bloods to take up in 
a police court to-morrow morning,” said one police- 
man to another. “ Watches and diamond rings on 
’em. Won’t there be a trying to hush it up !” 

“Poor lads!” said an elderly man, compassion- 
ately. “I’ll venture not one of them meant a bit 
of harm when he set out this morning. It has all 
come of meeting their good wishes with a glass of 


A MILLION- TOO MUCH. 


113 


poison. These mothers and sisters are deliberately 
killing their neighbors’ sons and brothers. It would 
save us a heap of trouble on New Year’s Day if there 
was a city ordinance forbidding offering wine and such 
liquors for refreshments.” 


H 


























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. 






' 








H? - 





































































CHAPTER SEVENTH 


Jjtlp from t|t Jjtabg .faihrs. 

lt Hundreds of men were turned to beasts, 

Like the guests at Circe’s horrible feasts, 

By the magic of ale and cider: 

And each country lass, and country lad, 

Began to caper and dance like mad ; 

And even some old ones appeared to have had 
A bite from the Naples spider” 












\ 







































X 













v 












CHAPTER SEVENTH. 



Material Aid of Heavy Fathers. 

URING the eighteen years of his orphan* 
age, P. had doubtless received many favors 
and courtesies from his guardians and 
administrators, earnest of good deeds yet 
to he done in his behalf. Friendship had first been 
shown by handsful of bon-bons to the hoy in petti- 
coats; it came next in the guise of miniature uni- 
forms, guns and swords, fireworks, magic lanterns, 
'and engines that wound up with keys and springs, 
presented to the round-faced lad ; the horse and the 
phaeton followed, and when at sixteen, P. with much 
shame-facedness and secret pride put on his first 
long-tailed coat, a splendid glossy plum-colored broad- 
cloth; he was duly invited to Saratoga and Cape 
May, by administrator No. 1, J. Pincham, Sr. 
Saratoga had not then been blessed with a Member 
of Congress to open a gambling-saloon for the im- 
provement of the youth who flocked thither to learn 
good manners, morals, and statesmanship ; but father 

(HT) 


118 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Pincham found means to make P.’s hours pass 
pleasantly and unprofitably. 

The dancing-master had faithfully performed his 
part, and the “ fantastic toe” of young P. was the 
most fantastic of its sort. The young man was able 
to kill the time between ten and two, when old- 
fashioned people were sound asleep, with unnumbered 
round dances, with Sybil or Seraphina. When these 
dear creatures had left the glare of the gaslight, and 
soared to higher regions, in the third or fourth stories, 
P. had the wine-room to revisit, and like a lad of 
spirit must take a cigar in the smoking-room ; it was 
late when he found time to sleep, and nearly noon 
when he came down stairs to try the waters of his 
favorite spring, and get his breakfast. 

Well removed from the rest of the public rooms, 
was a snug apartment whither J. Pincham, Sr., often 
beguiled the ward of the Orphans’ Court, and benevo- 
lently initiated him into the science of card-playing. 
P. had heretofore learned one card from another, and 
with more or less judgment handed them over, in 
parlor games of euchre and whist; but now he 
learned a depth of which he had not dreamed, he was 
instructed to gamble as became a gentleman, and 
father Pincham blandly won his money, “just to 
show him how the thing was done;” he kept it with 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


119 


the same wise intention. The skilful management 
of the “pasteboards” was invariably accompanied by 
sips of brandy and water ; the brandy became more, 
the water less, and the sips enlarged to drinks as 
time went on. 

Later in P.’s day, driving was in order; and fancy 
driving, dashing horses, stylish turnouts, racing and 
betting, and quarrelling over different beasts, and the 
choice vocabulary of the stables, formed a part of 
the education for which this young man was deeply 
indebted to the administrator. 

In the early evening the consequential, bloated, 
and profoundly self-satisfied Pincham, Sr., and our 
boy, fresh and slender, with already a weary, wonder- 
ing look at the tiresome shams he had found in life, 
seated in close conversation, might have moved the 
soul of a philanthropist. The elder man was fat- 
faced, small-eyed and leering ; he had a huge ring on 
his little finger, and a ponderous seal on his watch 
chain; he settled his big head comfortably in his 
collar, and though he said but little, each speech 
seemed somehow a long step toward the devil, whom 
this man was ever ready to meet half way. P. had 
the innocent frankness of early life ; however sick he 
might be of the present, he was dowered with the 
future, the heritage of all youth. Of this he spoke ; 


120 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


he would do thus and so, buy, sell, journey, enjoy, in 
those halcyon days when he had come of age and 
received his own. 

“All this will take a vast deal of money/ said 
his mature companion. 

“ But I have a great deal ; a million is a deal of 
money,” said P., with calm assurance. 

“ That is true, but you do not reckon the expenses 
of your establishment, and education all these years.” 

“ Those are out of the income,” said P., acutely. 
“ The expenses cannot possibly now outrun the 
income.” 

“ Expenses are very heavy,” said Pincham, puffing 
out clouds of smoke. 

“ And the income is very great,” insisted P. 

“ 0 yes, certainly,” replied the administrator. 
“ You are doubtless a rich man, still you know, legal 
fees and so forth eat great holes, and moreover 
estates rarely ever foot up to the first estimate.” 

If P. had been reasonably trained, these remarks 
would have set him thinking. But P. did not like to 
take the trouble to think ; he left that to Professor 
Easy, and others who were paid for it ; moreover his 
cigar made him stupid, cards and brandy had set his 
brain in a whirl, and there was a ball in prospect. 

These days at Saratoga were 'ess innocent, and 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


121 


truly less happy, than the quiet years when Aunt 
Debhy with her pale, loving face had bent over his 
bed to hear his evening prayer ; had kissed him, and 
hade him he a good hoy \ and on Sunday had taken 
him duly to church and had him read her a chapter 
from the Bible when they got home. If only Aunt 
Debhy had known how to be consistent, or if she had 
worked as well as wished ! 

In the city the Orphan was neglected neither by 
his own nor his father’s friends. He began to he in- 
vited to dinner parties, and remained — greatly bored — 
to drink wine on occasions when he would have been 
better pleased with the society of the ladies ; the 
young man having arrived at the sentimental stage 
of his existence. 

After these dinners P. sometimes went home- simply 
tired, and wondering what good there was in living ; 
hut once in a while, being young and as yet unused 
to these occasions, he left his host and his wits at tho 
same time, and wandered about maudlin, and in a 
half frenzy, getting home rather by good luck than 
good management. 

Peregrinating the streets in this unsteady fashion, 
and trolling forth a stave of a popular song, P. 
attracted the notice of Teddy Green, our young gen- 
tleman having wandered away from the autocratic 


122 


A M ALTON TOO MUCH. 


locality of his own abode, and intruded into the 
quarter of respectable poverty, where, if people are 
out late, it is because they are at their work. P. 
was so excited in mind, and so unsteady on his legs, 
that Teddy thought the only sensible course was to 
take him to his own humble abode, and let him seek 
the lofty Dean mansion when he got better. These 
foster brothers accordingly climbed a high staircase, 
and Teddy helping P. to the bed, considerately laid 
himself upon the floor, with his coat wrapped up for 
a pillow. P.’s last remark at night was that Teddy 
was “ a gay old boy, and here’s your health, sir !” 

When he woke in the morning he missed the gor- 
geous canopy, the down-filled quilt, the rosewood and 
marble, the dainty appliances of the toilette, which 
had ever greeted his opening eyes. 

Instead, he saw the four-post cherry-wood bed- 
stead, the patchwork coverlet, the windows with 
newspapers for curtains, a Windsor chair, a box 
covered with chintz, doing duty as a dressing-table, a 
square stand with a brown bowl and pitcher, a crash 
towel and a square of bar soap, which all looked so 
amazingly primitive and absurd, that P. sat up in 
bed and shouted with laughter, and so sitting up 
came in view of Mr. Teddy laid on the floor, with no 
ceremony of undressing but pulling off his boots and 







A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


123 


unbuttoning his vest, his head resting on a rolled-up 
coat, and making a spread eagle of himself, with arms 
extended and fists clenched ; P. laughed louder and 
louder. 

Teddy woke up and smiled, but grimly. 

“Well, Teddy, my lad, here’s a jolly go? How 
came I here ? am I visiting you, or are we both visit- 
ing some one else ? or has Uncle Sam taken us both 
up in some moment of unconsciousness, and landed us 
in one of his favorite institutions?” 

“ If you please, Mr. Dean, such moments of un- 
consciousness do not come to me,” said Teddy. “ This 
is my room ; and, though it suits me very properly, 
I’m sorry it is not better for you.” 

“And how, in the name of wonder, did I get 
here ?” 

“ I found you coming along the street, sir, not over 
well able to take care of yourself, and I made you as 
easy as I could.” 

“ Ah, I remember something about it. So we were 
both out late, it seems, Ted, my boy?” 

“I was out for business, sir, getting ready your 
paper ; and you were out for what they call pleasure , 
but of a poor sort ; for, if only that is w T ell that ends 
well, this must be ill enough.” 

“ Yes, yes, to be sure. I went to dinner with that 


124 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


confounded Snell, one of my administrators, Teddy. 
Sometimes I wish there had been nothing to adminis- 
ter upon. Between the fathers and the daughters, 
and the rest of them, I’m like to go to the dogs, 
Teddy, as you poor rascals are too busy to go. And 
you stick to the paper yet ? Printer’s devil, or what 
are you now ?” 

“ I’m a compositor,” said Teddy, gruffly. 

“ Keep bad hours, don’t you, Teddy? We rich 
villains can lie abed until noon ; but I did not know 
you could try it.” 

“ Late work and late sleep, sir,” replied Teddy. 
“ If you’d honor us by stopping to breakfast, we can 
give you a good one. Mother’s got over that trouble 
she fell into at your house, and we do right well once 
more.” 

“ That’s good news,” said P., cordially, dropping 
back on his pillow. “ Yes ; I’ll stay. It will be 
something new ; and a change is what I’m dying for. 
How many are there of you, Teddy?” 

“ There’s grandmother ; she’s old as old can be, 
but we make her quite happy. And there’s father ; 
he’s just more than contented. Mother ; she’s good 
as gold, now. There’s my big brother, clerk at the 
grocer’s ; he's talking of getting married. And there’s 
a little sister, four years old ; we’re making up to her 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


125 


for the trouble that happened the other little one. 
Then here I am ; I mean not to stop until I’m an 
editor.” 

Teddy had got up, pulled off part of his clothes, 
and now soused his head and neck thoroughly in a 
basin of water ; he turned, his face and hair dripping, 
as he reached for the towel. “ We are a temperance 
family now, sir, and I recommend it to you. If you 
had cold-water principles, you would not be dying for 
a change, and find living such a bore as you do. If 
you had a clear brain, that no liquors heated up, 
you’d take to doing something ; and work brings rest 
and a glad heart — that it does. Do you know, I 
think every man owes the world a man’s work ; and 
the richer and wiser we are, the more’s our duty to 
do something. I remember you from when we were 
both small fellows, and I blacked your boots. You 
have done me many a good turn ; and if I only could 
make a cold-water man of you, Mr. Dean, I’d feel as 
if I’d paid all I owed.” 

“ Don’t talk of owing ; there was nothing but my 
own pleasure in my mind, Teddy. But it is quite 
enough to make one shiver, to see you washing your- 
self this November morning between two open win- 
dows. Why, Teddy, it makes me laugh to hear you 
talk of temperance. No one but you ever mentioned 


126 A MILLION TOO MUCH. 

the matter to me: and consider the amount of teach- 
ers, and guardians, and legal advisers and doctors 
I’ve had about me.” 

“ 6 Too many cooks spoil the broth,’ ” growled 
Teddy, as he brought fresh water and towels, and put 
the windows down, that the dainty P. might dress 
himself, while Teddy helped his mother get breakfast. 

The father had been off to work this some time, 
and the breakfast was only for the two — a gala affair; 
ham and eggs, apple-sauce, fried potatoes, and corn- 
bread. Mrs. Green did her best ; and Teddy, with 
an honest appetite ever at command, thought it won- 
derful. Even P. ate heartily, and questioned within 
himself why they could not get up as good a breakfast 
at home; he meant to speak on the subject to the 
obsequious Mrs. Jillet. Whether it was the hard bed, 
the freezing water, and the frosty morning air, to 
which Teddy had treated him, or the newness of the 
cookery, P. could not have told, but something made 
him hungry ; and, as he ate, he cast curious glances 
at his foster-mother. 

Mrs. Green could never regain the comely propor- 
tions, and the traditional milkmaid innocence, which 
she had taken to the Dean mansion; but for these 
seven or eight years she had been a reformed woman, 
and her household rejoiced in her restoration. Miss 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


127 


Gale had been the means through which this blessing 
had come to the family, and P. had heretofore heard 
of it from Teddy, and from the ex-governess herself. 
As he sat at the table that morning, he felt it was a 
work worthy of her ; for he honored Miss Gale above 
all the women he had ever seen. The beauty of her 
life was its consistency ; she so thoroughly practised 
what she preached. The first point was to ascertain 
duty ; the next was to do it. 

Breakfast over, and Teddy setting off to his work, 
P. prepared to return home. 

“ Won’t Miss Dean be frightened at your absence ?” 
asked Teddy. 

P. laughed at the idea of alarm on his account. 

“ She will probably not know it. If she does — why, 
she is used to it.” 

“ Not from this same cause, I hope ?” said Teddy, 
seriously. 

“ 0, no, not often ; to be sure not. I’m a pretty 
straight fellow, after all. Not so prim as you are, 
but well in a way. I stay out sometimes from one 
cause, sometimes from another. No one ever asks me 
why ; the dear old soul would be afraid of offending. 
I often wish, Ted, that there had been somebody to 
call me to an account in all this world. It might have 
been better.” 


128 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


“ That is so,” said Teddy, with solemnity. “It 
might serve to make you better prepared for a grand 
account we must all render some day ; higher up, you 
know.” 

P. walked on, with his head down, pondering. At 
last he spoke : “ I think there’s a good deal of excuse 
for me. You have no idea, Teddy, how hard it is on 
a fellow to he brought up as I have been. Every one 
seems to have tried to make me selfish and shiftless. 
Never anything to do ; and everything I wanted 
handed over at once. I often wish I’d had a million 
cents, instead of a million dollars.” 

“ There’s no use wishing to throw away your privi- 
leges, Mr. Dean. The Lord gave you a fortune to be 
used like a man and a Christian ; and if its possession 
brings you many temptations, you should only try 
harder to overcome them. The great danger with 
you, sir, is strong drink. If you’d only let that 
alone.” 

“ If I only would ! 0, Teddy, how little you know ! 
I’m waylaid and besieged by it on every hand. From 
the day I -was born until now I have been beset by it. 
Cooks and doctors, friends and relations, old and 
young, men and women, they tempt me — tempt me 
all the time. And, Teddy, if I do yield, and am 
sometimes the worse for drinking, I really think th)so 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


129 


who make it, and sell it, and offer it, are more to 
blame than I am.” 

“ It is no use questioning who is the m :>st blamable, 
sir. The first thing is to keep your own account clear, 
and to beware of what is wrong. If you only had 
some object in life ” 

“ Haven’t any, Teddy. Never could find one; and 
living is very tedious, after all. Sometimes I wish I 
could jump out of it.” 

“Like your father before you,” said Teddy to him- 
self, as he nodded good morning, and turned down 
toward the office where he worked, leaving the poor 
young millionaire to saunter toward the home of whose 
luxury he was so wear y. 

Administrators Pincham and Snell, doing their part 
against Master Dean, Administrator Binkle, an old 
bachelor of more means than reputation, took a share 
in the proceedings. Mr. Binkle was of good family 
— not that the Binkles had ever been shining lights, 
mentally or morally, but they had made money in 
land speculations for several generations. Binkle 
having been brought up to fashionable proprieties, 
had in his mature years darted off into Bohemianism. 
His house was a favorite rendezvous for fourth-rate 
wits and painters; for the composers of love-songs 
and contributors to flash papers. Actors and singers 


130 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


and ballet-dancers of a low degree found in Binkle 
a patron ; and into their choice society Binkle 
brought his youthful friend, Aunt Debby’s boy and 
darling. 

Once again life opened something new to the victim 
of good fortune. He had hitherto sat in a private 
box, and watched the play played out ; he now could 
get behind the scenes, into the green-room, at re- 
hearsal, and see the making-up, the miffs and mis- 
takes, the tinsel and folly ; and he wondered to find 
how sick he grew of it all. How he pitied those who 
must drearily make bread and butter by these miseries 
day after day ! 

“ Don’t you wish,” said P. to an actor who had 
been assassinated a score of days in succession, “ don’t 
you wish that it had been real, and no farce, and you 
were done with the bother of existence?” 

The man meditated a little. “ Well, no. The fact 
is I have something to live for — failure to dread — 
success to desire — a support to obtain. I have the 
advantage of you there, Mr. Dean. You are the most 
completely bored person I ever met. Life has been 
made too easy to you. We complain about the thorns 
on the roses ; yet, after all, I sometimes wonder if the 
thorns are not an attraction.” 

P. had thought of dropping out of his own circle 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


131 


and joining a theatrical company; but then, as be 
could not have lost tbe possibility of returning to bis 
fortune, be would still have bad no spur to exertion — 
and it would have been so tiresome to learn bis part ! 

Perhaps if we were to point out one place more 
than another, where tbe chains of intemperance were 
riveted on our P., we would fix on tbe bouse of Binkle, 
for here more fiery and abundant potations were in * 
dulged in. Here they drank, not for fashion’s sake, 
fashionable drinks, to criticise, to praise, or to con- 
demn ; but they drank from a feverish thirst — a love 
of tbe liquor itself. P. wondered that they found 
anything so desirable in these drinks, but he was 
lured on to try for himself. 

“Young man,” said Dr. Roxwell, “you are living 
at a 2-40 rate. You have been living fast ever since 
you were born. You are now some ten years my 
senior — and the family Bible shows me sixty my last 
birthday.” 





























































































































• 































. 









CHAPTER EIGHTH. 

%\t fate fonts its $)art. 


“Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard, 
To get her old dog a bone. 

When she got there, the cupboard was bare, 
And so the poor dog got none.” 


* 


(133) 












CHAPTER EIGHTH. 


Tine Law does its Tart. 

E are told that Mother Hubbard’s dog was 
“ her only care the result, so far as we 
have been able to gather from credible 
historians, was his sudden and mysterious 
demise. P. was the care of three administrators, two 
guardians, six gentlemen learned in law, Dr. Roxwell, 
Aunt Debby, and the Orphans’ Court. Under the 
supervision of these thirteen individuals, and the said 
Court, our infant attained his majority, and stood 
forth a man and a fellow-citizen. 

In the few months before this great event, Aunt 
Debby was in a flutter of expectations ; she indeed 
hoped so much, anticipated so much, made so many 
fine preparations for presents and festival to celebrate 
the birth of the Heir of a Million, that she fell ill, 
and was forced to call in Dr. Roxwell. 

“Ah! my dear doctor,” said the amiable Aunt 
Debby, “ you do not know how I have hoped for the 
day that is now drawing near. I expect my boy to 
do a great deal of good with his money. Once he is 

(135) 



186 


A Mt: LION TOO MUCH. 


master of himself, my dear P. will show what is in 
him. He is the most charitable creature that ever 
was known. Did you hear of all he did for that 
Green family ? Saved them in fact, the darling !” 

Now we will say for young Dean, that he had never 
thought of giving his aunt this high idea of his good 
deeds, when he had mentioned the Green household 
in her presence. Aunt Dtbby’s love, as is love’s wont, 
had outrun facts. 

“ And what particular good deed do you plan for 
your nephew, now that he has got done with the Green 
family?” asked Dr. Roxwell, dryly. 

“ I have had my mind very much on an asylum for 
genteel people of decayed fortunes. We could call 
it the Dean Institute, and it would ever remain a 
memorial to the family. I would not wish a shabby, 
close, narrow sort of place, to be for ever reminding 
people how poor they are ; but a handsome house, in 
a pleasant garden ; with well- furnished rooms ; a 
library ; and say a couple of coaches for people to 
get out sometimes. When people grow to my age, 
dear doctor, they get tired of fashion and society, and 
find it far more congenial to busy themselves in doing 
good. I know I do ; and my sympathies are very 
much enlisted for nice people who have seen better 
days.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


137 


“Well, I confess that my charities would take the 
direction of such poor forsaken little wretches as have 
seen no good days at all, and, from no fault of their 
own, have been starving on husks ever since they 
formed a distinct part of creation. But, Miss Dean, 
I wish to bring before you a subject which has greatly 
occupied my mind lately. Do you know, that of estates 
that go into the hands of administrators and execu- 
tors, a large proportion never reach the heirs ? They 
melt away, filtering into somebody’s pocket, of course, 
hut diverted from the original intention.” 

“ I don’t see how that can he, doctor,” said Aunt 
Debby. “ When so many people are provided to look 
after property, it must be well taken care of.” 

“ There is no such necessity in fact,” replied the 
doctor. “ A piece of porcelain is much more likely 
to be broken in being handed about among a com- 
pany than when held by one person. When a great 
fortune, or a little fortune, is looking for care-takers, 
and those who have the handling of it are bound to 
feather their nests, then I say, the fewer the better.” 

“ There’s the Orphans’ Court to look after every- 
body.” 

“And Courts bring legal expenses. Now I know 
very little what direction these affairs of young Dean 
are taking ; but I do say this : Since Messrs. Pinch- 


138 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


am, Snell, and Binkle are to make money out of him ; 
since two guardians will scrupulously look out for their 
own interests ; since six lawyers have had fees through 
twenty-one years of service ; you need hardly expect 
your nephew to have means to found, endow, and 
sustain a genteel asylum, unless, indeed, he is to take 
refuge in it himself.” 

“ Why, sir,” said Aunt Debby, nervously, “in my 
experience, people always get their own.” 

“Your experience, Miss Dean,” said the doctor, 
calmly, “ is only that of those women whose status in 
society is as if they were done up in cotton, and kept 
in a glass case. I question if you know anything at 
all of the hard facts of existence. One fact is, that 
executors, or those who serve for them, inherit the 
major part of estates, the interest of the true heirs 
being so sedulously looked after that it becomes 
nothing at all. Men toil and strive ; peril their souls 
to get money ; often pinch and hamper their children, 
that they may leave a larger fortune, and what is the 
result ? Generally, just this : That some of their 
neighbors and relations step in to make matters 
straight, and they keep paring and cutting away until 
all is gone. It is like old iEsop’s fable of the division 
of the cheese ; the arbitrator bit first one piece and 
then the other, to make them even, and so kept on 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


139 


biting until all was gone ; and the two expectants got 
nothing but leave to go off howling.” 

“ Indeed, Dr. Roxwell, I have always read that— 
that ” 

“ You have read that on attaining their majority, 
the heirs come into possession with great eclat. That 
only happens in novels, my dear madam. Real ex- 
perience is that the cupboard is bare, and the dog — 
albeit he looked for nothing but a bone — gets none.” 

“ What a misfortune for minor children to lose their 
parents 1” said Aunt Debby, plaintively. 

“ The case is even worse for grown-up children, very 
frequently,” said the doctor, settling himself quite 
comfortably in his easy-chair. “ I have often talked 
it over to my cousin Nancy. The guardian and the 
administrator of the minor feels that he has some time 
in which to work for himself before accounts must be 
rendered; and meantime, to keep matters quiet, he 
takes care of the juvenile owner of the property he 
means to seize. The heir gets that much good out 
of his estate. But I have known sons and daughters 
who had reached a majority to be jewed out of every 
copper, and obliged to pay the costs of the little 
operation.” 

“ Dreadful ! dreadful !” groaned Miss Dean. “ But 
where are the bonds the Court claims, and why can- 


140 vl MILLION TOO MUCH. 

not the adult children administer the estate them- 
selves ?” 

“ One part of your question explains the other. 
The children are not administrators because of. the 
bonds required. They cannot furnish a security ; and 
their inheritance is therefore secured by, and to, some 
one else. If the children administered the estate, 
they might deal fairly — would , perhaps. I have not 
a high opinion of human decency ; but there is the 
chance that fraternal feeling would cause them to 
divide with the co-heirs ; and, at all events, there is 
the consolation of thinking that the property would 
go to one of those for whom it was intended.’ ’ 

“ And yet the laws that govern the care and division 
of property have occupied profound legal minds these 
many years. Can they he improved on?” ventured 
poor Miss Dean, much perplexed. 

“ I don’t know indeed. 4 It’s a’ a muddle’ — very 
much of a muddle. I just touched on the subject to 
let you know that you must not have too large views 
concerning the money coming to your nephew, for it 
is likely to dwindle down to a very trifle.” 

“It is terrible!” said Aunt Debby, turning pale. 
“ It quite makes me sick to think of it.” 

“ 0, 1 came here to cure you, not to kill you,” said 
the doctor. “ And I dare say, after all, that I know 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


141 


more of medicine than of law. Things may prove 
different from what I suggest ; and moreover I think 
poverty would be the very best thing in the world for 
our P. I am afraid, after all, that he will have 
enough property left to ruin him.” 

Nor is it odd that our dear Aunt Debby had so 
high an opinion of the potent dollar, that the doctor’s 
last suggestion was a balm to her vexed spirit. 

Meantime, the thoughts of Aunt Debby ’s nephew 
had turned to his estate. All his life he had been so 
well taught the power of money, in gratifying his 
whims, smoothing his way, and buying him ease and 
praise, that he was not now likely to despise it. If 
his planning about what he would do with it was a 
little different from Aunt Debby’s, we must consider 
his youth, and the indulgence he had received. 

As the last six months of his minority rolled away, 
our young man found something to do, instructing 
administrators, guardians, and lawyers that he meant 
to have his business punctually settled, accounts ren- 
dered, and claims met, on the grand day when he 
should be one-and-twenty. If this should not be 
done, how in the world did this rash young fellow 
mean to mend matters, but by feeing another lawyer 
on his own behalf, and carrying the business again 
into Court ! 


142 


A MILLION TOO MUCH , . 


Poor fellow ! he was credulous and ardent ; but 
then — he was young, and deliciously ignorant of law ! 

Of course during two decades these administrators 
and guardians had known that a day would dawn 
which would prove a day of account, either in this 
world or the next ; but both seemed equally remote, 
and they had failed to prepare for the occasion. To 
begin with the administrators, they were rascals of a 
diverse fashion. For instance: — 

Binkle’s rascality was that of indifference. He had 
suffered himself to be made one of the administrators 
of the Dean Million, because it was so much trouble 
to refuse, and he had been assured that he should not 
be bored with business. Binkle had his actors, poets, 
new plays, and sham tragedies to attend to. He said 
to P. : “ My dear fellow, I really don’t know a word 
about this business. Go to Pincham; he does the 
work. I don’t even look on. A settlement? 0, 
certainly ; they’re easy enough to get at, ain’t they ? 
Pincham will tell you everything. I haven’t had the 
least bother with your estate these twenty years. I 
left it all to him, and you’ll find it by far the easiest 
way.” 

“The easiest way to get rid of other folks’ con 
cerns, but not the easiest way to look out for youi 
own,” said P., sharply. 


A MILLION TO, MUCH, 


143 


“ 0, well, maybe so ; every one to his taste. I 
know no French but one verb, P., and I spend my 
whole existence conjugating that — s’amuser.” 

Thus much for the erudite Binkle ; and our young 
man addressed himself to Snell. Mr. T. Snell was 
one of the rascals of quiet complicity. He had no 
particular designs on P.’s fortune further than marry- 
ing to it one of the Misses Snell, if it should prove 
large enough, when paid over, to be worth the matri- 
monial scheming. The paternal Snell had had the 
orphan to Niagara, to Montreal, to Lake Champlain, 
and the White Mountains, in company with all the 
Snell family, and the expenses of the Snell family 
had been covered by those charged to the heir. Snell 
had had a pair of carriage horses, or so, through buy- 
ing for the youthful orphan ; and his wine, and his 
coachman’s wages, had been met by the tremendous 
charges supposed to be made in the establishment of 
the millionaire. Snell was a little man, and his 
meannesses were little. He could not get up a 
courage to cheat like Pincham ; he knew what Pinch- 
am was after, and he let him go on, provided he 
might get his own small stealings unmolested. 

J. Pincham, Sr., had worked hard for his position 
as administrator, from the day when that ill-fated 
young Dean, P.’s father, had put a bullet into his 


144 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


frenzied brain. Pincham was not your man to help 
himself to wine, or wages, or pleasure-trips ; he took 
his plunder by whole handfuls, by round thousands. 

When P. said to Snell that he would soon be of age, 
would manage matters for himself, and expected to 
be promptly put in charge of his own property, Snell 
said, “ Yes, yes, yes ; Pincham mentioned it to me 
lately. Estates are a deal of trouble. Yours has 
been a great charge to us. We have been careful to 
keep your accounts, and have set down every little 
item — every item; and your expenses are enormous, 
Pincham is the man to do business, P., and he will 
make everything plain. I have done very little — 
perfect confidence in him — no time — no tact as he 
has. Yes, yes, yes, go to Pincham. Come dine to- 
morrow.” 

To Pincham went P. with his remarks “ that they 
were aware, &c., and he expected, &c., and twenty- 
one years was a very long time.” 

“ Well,” responded this prince of rascals, “ it takes 
a long time to straighten matters up, to make trans- 
fers, to examine accounts, to pay debts. You remem- 
ber I suggested to you some four or five years ago 
that your expenses were absolutely prodigious, and 
that estates met with losses — in short, that fortunes 
never met expectations. Our services have been 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


145 


many, and gratuitous. I have done, and will do, my 
best for — all concerned. I hope your aunt has not 
been too extravagant.’ ’ (Poor Aunt Debby !) “As 
a rough sketch, you have lived up the income every 
year. We’ll say there has been a hundred thousand 
or so paid out to the lawyers ; that another hundred 
thousand or so fell short in the original summing up 
of the estate ; that a few more hundreds of thousands 
were lost by the big fire, when Snell had failed to rein- 
sure, and by the wreck of the “ Polyanthus ,” loaded 
with rum, and returning to New York from the West 
Indies, in the year of your father’s unfortunate 
decease — all these items count up ; but I’ll do my 
best for all concerned, and try and save you some- 
thing.” 

P.’s eyes were opened to a treachery, and he rushed 
off madly and found a lawyer to watch Mr. Pincham 
and pick flaws in his reports, show up his frauds, and 
force him to refund. 

Unhappy P. ! His twenty-first birthday was no 
more propitious than the day when he opened his eyes 
u to this world troublesome.” He was driven and 
harassed by a thousand distractions ; he felt that he 
had been foully overreached and swindled; he had 
not been educated in a manner to enable him te take 


146 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


his own part and help himself; he hated Pincham, 
Snell, Binkle, — everybody. 

His guardians made a dinner-party, congratulated 
him, drank his health, wished him prosperity, and in 
so doing — made him drunk. They hoped their heavy 
cares for him were ended ; and when they sent him 
home stupid and surly in his carriage ; they said their 
reign over him was finished, and his own had begun. 

The one guardian was an old bachelor who had 
done little for his ward but neglect him. He had 
been chosen by Aunt Debby because he was such an 
elegant gentleman, and made such entirely fascinating 
bows. Perhaps Aunt Debby had at some time silently 
and secretly fallen in love with this man, and worn 
out the unfed affection — who knows ? There are a 
many queer things in this world. 

The other guardian was also of Aunt Debby ’s 
choosing. He was an uncle of P.’s mother; he had 
helped himself of P.’s abundance like the rest of 
people. He was the father of three sons, all of 
whom P., quite unconsciously, had sent to college, 
and started in business. 

When Aunt Debby found that matters had gone 
very wrong, and that P. had not woke up on the 
morning of his twenty-first birthday to find a million 
of dollars all in gold, piled up in his ante-room, like 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


147 


the Inca’s ransom, as she had been rather vaguely 
dreaming, she laid it to the malfeasance of the 
guardians, and primarily to herself as having selected 
them. She accused herself of having beggared her 
idolized boy ; she went to her bed inconsolable, and 
stayed there a month, in spite of Dr. Roxwell. We 
shall not say that P. did anything to console her ; he 
was too cross from his own troubles and disappoint- 
ments to care for any one. 

P. went to court ; he haunted law-offices ; he heard 
opinions ; he gained decisions, and when all was over 
he knew just this, which we shall tell you : He had 
exactly one hundred thousand dollars, instead of the 
million which had been left him. How he came to 
have that, he could not find out ; it was explained to 
him a number of times, but he never understood it. 
It looked quite clear to him, and to everybody, that 
there had been a million left by the suicide Dean, 
twenty-one years before ; where it had gone, how, to 
whom, was never clearly put into speech. The courts 
and society seemed to consider every one who had 
handled this property quite irreproachable ; the law- 
yers were all honorable men ; the administrators 
were without suspicion, especially the admirable 
Pincham ; the guardians were incorruptible. 

Nothing was said of the bonds entered into; no 


148 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


one heard of any restitution imposed, or punishment 
deserved; there is nothing so potent as precedent, 
and P.’s property had gone the way that orphans’ 
fortunes generally go. 

Well, yes ! the millionaire had come down to a 
paltry hundred thousand, he said to himself. He 
might still have a Miss Snell, if he wanted her. 

“My dear fellow,” said Dr. Roxwell, “my opinion 
is, that you ought to have been very glad you came 
of age as you did. If your minority had lasted 
another five years, you would have found your sole 
inheritance to be some ten thousand dollars’ worth of 
debts, which would have been very heavy on you.” 

“And I think,” sobbed Aunt Debby, “that my 
poor boy has been most shamefully handled, and 
cheated by all of them !” 

“ That is a common occurrence in this world ; we 
are all like the naughty little lobsters who will bite 
their brother’s legs off,” said the doctor. 

Miss Gale was - there spending the evening ; she was 
quietly making a gown for a little child in a hospital, 
and now looked up. “ Do you know what I think ? 
The man who made the money, your grandfather P., 
did not pay the Lord his tithes, and so the Lord is 
now doing the tithing. Do you understand, P. ? 
Your grandfather kept back the tenths, and now you 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


149 


get only a tenth. Estates won’t hold together unless 
tney are well cemented by giving. Men gather, 
gather, never think of scattering to the poor ; and 
by-and-by the grand fortune is driven about to the 
four winds of heaven, and the descendants have to 
scrabble for their little share as if they never had 
any claim on it. Do you suppose your father would 
have liked to work for Mr. Pincham, Miss Dean ?” 

“Why, now that I think of it, my father was 
always at swords’ points with him,” said Aunt Debby. 

“ By your theory, you make me suffer for the 
faults of my ancestors,” said P. to Miss Gale. 

“ Children often do that,” she said. “ May you 
suffer from them no more, my poor P.” 






















CHAPTER NINTH 


Jitti lljt gclnl bats I]is. 


1 How widely its agencies vary, 

To save — to ruin — to curse — to bless— 

As even its minted coins express ; 

Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bom, 
And now with Bloody Mary.” 














































































































































I 




























- 
























- 

















CHAPTER NINTH. 


And the Devil does His. 

'wfflyl^HE World, the Flesh, and the Devil, these 
are three things we are supposed to renounce 
^1' in our baptism ; these are the three enemies 
* of the soul from the hour when it comes 
“ trailing clouds of glory very soon, alas ! to enter 
clouds of gloom. The World, the Flesh, and the 
Devil — these, Bunyan’s Pilgrim met and conquered ; 
the World in the City of Destruction ; the Flesh in 
the hardships of the way, the Slough, the burdened 
back, the Difficult Hill, the lions lying by the path ; 
the Devil in that Valley of Humiliation that should 
have been a happy place, but was not. These all the 
Prince of Dreamers saw — met, and worsted, in 
vision — we meet them, and are conquered. 

Our P., with his million in expectation, had been 
made the slave of the world from his first breath. 
Aunt Debby had renounced it for him, and immedi- 
ately handed him over bound hand and foot in its 
follies ; then came the temptations of the flesh to the 
poor pampered boy, and he was carried captive at 

(153) 


154 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


once of indolence, vanity, eating and drinking ; and 
now that he was twenty-one, and his own master, the 
Devil came alongside, looking like an angel of light 
very likely, and P. surrendered. 

Until the change in his fortunes, P. had seemed an 
easy, jolly, innocent lad, neither very good nor very 
evil ; after getting from Pincham & Co. only one- 
tenth of his rights, he grew bitter, reckless, and 
faithless all at once. 

In her disappointment and sorrow, longing for a 
friend, Aunt Debby entreated Miss Gale to come and 
stay with her. The governess had entered into pos- 
session of a morsel of money that sufficed for her 
moderate wants, and obviated the necessity of her 
teaching ; so she came to Miss Debby for a visit, 
seemed like a sister, and so stayed on, until it became 
quite her home. 

The change in fortune caused Aunt Debby to 
reduce the style of her housekeeping. The fashion of 
economy was this : all that in any way concerned P. 
was left as it had been, the reductions were such as 
would only touch Aunt Debby. 

P. saw what was going on, and he did not object ; 
it did not seem to him that he ought to be restricted > 
the world owed him something which he had not 
received — the other part of that million, you know. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 155 

Amjong the items with which Aunt Debby dis- 
pensed, we may reckon the invaluable Mrs. Jillet, 
first and foremost. 

As had been mentioned by the metallic founder of 
the house of Dean, Mrs. Jillet had been somewhat 
exorbitant in the matter of wages ; besides this, her 
office had had its perquisites, as what office has not ? 
and Mrs. Jillet was prepared to retire from public life 
on a neat little competence. 

Mrs. Jillet was not without a place of refuge ; the 
excellent Mrs. Bently had found her services as a 
nurse falling into disrepute, on account of certain 
hints of inebriety ; calls for her attendance became 
infrequent, and ceased altogether ; and Mrs. Bently, 
who had with prudent forethought feathered her own 
nest, retired into it for safe-keeping — in other words, 
she opened a little public-house, called the Happy 
Home Hotel (Mrs. Bently pronounced it without the 
H’s) ; in which ’Appy ’Ome there was a very small 
place for sleeping up stairs, and a very large place 
for drinking on the first floor. 

To this ’Appy ’Ome, Mrs. Bently received Mrs. 
Jillet with effusion. Mrs. Jillet brought with her 
many elegant trappings, gathered from the superflui- 
ties of the house of Dean ; she furnished a bedroom 
for herself, and mostly by daylight favored Mrs. 


156 


A MILLION TOO MUCH 


Bently with her society, in a little room opening off 
the bar, a tidy place, with the traditional red cur- 
tains, flaming carpet, and bunches of artificial flowers 
on the chimney piece. They were getting old, these 
women; they dyed their hair, wore caps and false 
teeth, and knew that by far the shorter part of their 
life journey lay before them; yet here they sat in 
the stuffy ante-room, gossipping together, conjointly 
dealing out poison to others ; and as fate would have 
it, they sipped and sipped of the poison themselves. 

When Aunt Debby had narrowed her expenditures 
to suit her income, she ventured to give her nephew 
a little advice. 

44 If you would go into business, my dear boy, you 
might soon have your money back again. Your 
fortune is not to be despised, and you might make a 
fine business on it. Your grandfather began with 
almost nothing, and you know how he succeeded.” 

44 I don’t know how to do anything,” said P., “ and 
I don’t want to.” 

44 Take a partner who does know.” 

“ He’d cheat me ; every one does. No ; I shall 
not try business.” 

44 Then, my dear boy, you ought really to live within 
your income. Consider that your whole property now 
is only about the income of two years.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


157 


“Well, then, I can live two years, or three, just as 
I have done, before it is all gone,” said P., stubbornly. 

“ All gone ! But, my dear, consider ; you would 
beggar yourself.” 

“ Maybe by that time I would be gone, too,” said P. 

“ Don’t speak so, my darling ! It is not reasonable 
to think of your dying at four-and-twenty — a healthy 
fellow.” 

“ Pshaw, Aunt Debby !” interrupted P. “ If one 
finds the door locked, one can get out of the window, 
if necessary.” 

“ 0, my child, my child, you break my heart !” 
burst out Aunt Debby ; and the poor old lady went 
off weeping, -while all day long the echo of that pistol- 
shot, which had put her young brother out of this 
life, seemed to ring in her ears. 

When Miss Gale sat down soberly to talk with her 
former pupil, telling him of all he might do and be, 
the calm wisdom of her words, the earnestness of her 
own purpose, the beauty of her own example, and 
perhaps a little of the old-time school-room respect, 
almost won him, and awoke in him the manhood 
which had been all these years smothered by pamper- 
ing and idleness. If ever P. had been governed, 
taught self-restraint, responsibility, God-fearing, or 
man-fearing, or if he had inherited any grand moral 


158 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


purpose, this woman might have saved him ; hut all 
his life everything had been against him — ah ! so 
cruelly and bitterly against him; there seemed not 
one bit of courage and moral strength, or ahabition, 
left in him. 

Moreover, the Devil was now ensnaring this poor 
boy most fatally with infidel literature. He had 
never had much religious training. Miss Debby had 
done something for him, and Miss Gale more. They 
had taught him Bible history ; had taken him to 
church and given him a form of prayer ; some good 
books, too, when he would read th'em. It had been 
but a poor grain-sowing, and a plentiful scattering of 
tares. 

P. first ceased going to church on Sabbath morn- 
ings ; and, from staying at home and reading novels, 
began to walk about the streets, take drives, and 
lounge into hotels. He did this to show himself a 
lad of spirit, because his associates jeered a little and 
coaxed a little. Next came the reading of evil books. 
It was singular that he who abhorred an argument for 
anything good, and could not follow a scientific dis- 
cussion, perused with eagerness chapter after chapter 
of flimsy logic, pretending, and failing, to prove, that 
Nature was God, and Atheism was her prophet; that 
the Bible was a lie; religion a humbug; that the 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


159 


Christ, who died and was sepulchred in Judea, had 
neve* a resurrection ; that there is no incorruptible 
inheritance reserved for the sons of God. All these 
follies and blasphemies P. swallowed eagerly. It was 
not long before he felt learned enough in his new wis- 
dom to set it forth in speech, and then how he horrified 
his poor aunt ! 

What ! This boy whom she had taught to pray ; 
this child by whose crib she had dreamed many a 
dream ; this nephew who was to he her Christian 
gentleman embodied ; was he telling her that her 
theology was an old woman’s fable, and ranking the 
four holy Gospels with the ditties of Mother Goose ? 
Aunt Debby tried to argue the matter. She was 
even more illogical than her boy, and failed signally 
to prove anything. She was right, but she contra- 
dicted herself a dozen times in as many sentences, 
and retreated ignominiously beaten, while that un- 
fledged rascal held the field triumphant, shaking his 
head, looking belligerent, and daring all the world to 
conflict. Miss Gale did better with P., for she laughed 
at him, and told him he would outgrow his nonsense 
when he grew wiser, and know more both of men 
and science. She remarked to him that there was a 
“period of juvenescence, when lads take to infidelity 
as in yet earlier years they eat haws and rose-buds 


160 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


and chew spruce gum — all these little diversions grow 
equally distasteful as years pass by, and sense super- 
sedes nonsense !” 

How P. hated this fashion of dealing with his new 
creed ! He was wild to prove to her that his asser- 
tions were the fruit of profound study, and a deep- 
rooted conviction. She only laughed the more, 
measured the time and the pages spent in this rare 
research, and remorselessly exhibited his ignorance, 
not to others, but to himself. She might have found 
her antidote sufficient for a cure, if there had been no 
meddling by quack doctors. 

Our friend Roxwell had almost ceased to practise. 
He had grown rich, and liked to have leisure and 
to theorize. He was fond of coming in and talk- 
ing to Aunt Debby for old times’ sake — she was one 
of his few remaining patients. He heard all her 
troubles ; was the confidante of all her anxieties. 
Chiefly she dwelt on her nephew’s misfortunes and 
mischiefs. 

“ 0, doctor, where can he have got such notions?” 

“ From Adam, I suppose,” said the doctor, “ where 
all our evil comes from. That unfortunate progenitor 
had a deal to answer for when he picked the apple ; 
that fruit was a complete Pandora box of misfortunes 
to our race. Eating it, he filled all our veins with 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 1G1 

mischief ; and Milton even accuses him of having, by 
the first bite, jogged earth’s axis twenty-three and 
a half degrees ; on account of which deviation, Miss 
Dean, you and I are nursing up our rheumatism over 
the register during the winter, and sweltering on our 
way to the mountains or the sea-side in the summer, 
in a vain effort to keep cool.” 

“ Ah, doctor, how you do run on ! But I wish you 
would try and see P., and reason with him,” said Miss 
Dean. 

“Look you here, my good friend,” replied the doc- 
tor. “ Do you know that reasoning would have more 
effect on our young man if long ago you had tried 
ruling? If he had been taught to obey, and had 
caught a sharp smack or two when he raised a general 
rumpus at the age of three or four, you might now 
reason. But what did you do in those days, Miss 
Dean ? Why, you let him have his own way, or 
bribed him to get yours, which amounts to the same 
thing ; so now he must, even go on having his own 
way. It is a fact, madam, that those who are taught 
to respect and obey their parents, are the ones who 
will fear God and obey the laws of the land. You 
did a bad thing for P. when you let him come up in 
that Gilbert-go-gently fashion. He’s out of your 
reach now ; you can but look on.” 


162 


A MILLION TOO MUCII. 


“ I can and will keep on praying for him,” sobbed 
Aunt Debby. 

“ Yes, yes ; and it may save him. But what a 
pity that you did not preface your prayir.g, or inter- 
line it, with a little active working ! The praying 
alone would have done well enough if he had been 
out of your reach.” 

At this time P., miserably unsatisfied, went here 
and there, knowing the secret doors of gambling-hells, 
and the inside of dance-houses ; a fast young man, 
poor fellow ! trying to run away from the goadings 
of conscience and fierce unrest that pursued him, as 
the Furies pursued Orestes. Going everywhere, P. 
even strayed into Mrs. Bently’s elysium of red cur- 
tains and stuffiness, the “ Happy Home Hotel.” 
Here he was received with enthusiasm, like a prince 
and a patron. 

“Ah, Mr. Dean,” said Mrs. Jillet, “there is no 
telling what feelings I have for you. I lived in that 
house and took care of it from your grandfather’s 
time, and he was a hard gentleman to get along with ; 
and I’d have willingly stopped there and died for the 
sake of all of you, if things hadn’t happened just 
as they did. Me and Mrs. Bently often speaks of 
you ; and if you ever want to Irop in anywhere for 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


163 


hot gin and water to revive your spirits* we shall be 
more than pleased to give you a seat here, private.” 

“ Yes, indeed we will,” said Mrs. Bently, appearing 
with the refreshment named. “ And more, sir, I was 
a-thinking as there might be times when you was out 
late, and for that and other reasons, didn’t care for 
going home, for a small trifle of two or three dollars 
a week I’ll engage always to have a room and a bed 

ready for you to come to. Mrs. Jillet, dear, do look 

out of the window and see ! there goes Mrs. Green in 
a black alapacca and a silk bonnet, and that little girl 
of hers set off in blue. She’s quite coming out. If 
we called her in, and offered her a glass of gin, I’ll 
warrant you, she’d be in the gutter, and the new 
clothes out at pawn, in a two-months. She’s not 
strength of mind, like you and I have, poor thing !” 

“ No ; that’s true. I’ve a mind to call her,” said 
Mrs. Jillet. And, opening the window, she leaned 
out between the red curtains, and bawled, “ 0, Mrs. 
Green ! Can’t you stop a minute, and speak to old 
friends ?” 

Mrs. Green shook her head, and moved on. 

“ 0, but let me see your little girl. I am that fond 
of children !” said Mrs. Bently, leaning out by Mrs. 
Jillet. “ What a dear ihe is ! Do bring her in for a 


164 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


bit of candy, and you and I will have a drop of some- 
thing warm, as we used to.” 

“No, no, no!” cried Mrs. Green, as if in terror, 
grasping her child’s hand to pull her on. 

“Ah!” shrieked Mrs. Jillet. “Mr. Dean wants 
to see you. He is in here — your own nurse-child — 
and would like to see them together as was every one 
of them a mother to his young days !” 

P. saw his poor nurse hesitate ; he felt he might be 
sitting there to lure her to a fall even more tre- 
mendous than the first ; he remembered the homely 
breakfast at her house, and Teddy’s honest satisfac- 
tion. He sprung up, oversetting his glass of hot gin 
and water, and, rushing out, met the woman and child 
on the doorstep. 

“ I don’t want to see you, Mrs. Green — that is, not 
in there — I was only in of an errand — I’ll walk 
along with you — are you going home?” — he rattled, 
flurried and blundering. 

Mrs. Green drew a long breath. “ It’s no place 
for me — you came out, thank God ! Well, that’s the 
way He answered my prayer, ‘Lead us not into 
temptation.’ I did not know they lived there ; and, 
please the Lord, I’ll not walk on that square any 
more.” 

“No, don’t. And don’t let them call on you. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


165 


They are a pair of old witches. I heard them as 
good as say they wanted to destroy you. And there’s 
Teddy, you know, and the little girl.” 

“ And the last words of my old mother. She was 
buried a fortnight gone, sir.” And Mrs. Green looked 
down at her black alpaca. 

Meanwhile, Mrs. Jillet had said, “ There ! He’s 
gone. They’re both off. Well, there never was. any 
doing anything with Mr. P. He’s crochety.” 

“ I hope he’ll come again, and settle to have a 
lodging kept ready,” said Mrs. Bently. “ He would 
put many a penny in my pocket one way and 
another.” 

Indeed, P. did not reject Mrs. Bently ’s considerate 
offer. He thought it would be wonderfully conve- 
nient to have that out-of-the-way resort. He could 
not bear to go home and find Miss Gale quietly sit- 
ting up, book in hand. Nor was it any more agree- 
able to have Aunt Debby put her pale old face out 
of her door, her gray hair straying from under her 
night-cap, and to hear her say tremulously, “ Good 
night, and God bless you, my dear boy !” 

Good night ! It was sure to be a bad night ; for 
his head would whirl and buzz as his grand state bed 
danced pirouettes about his chamber, and one minute 
sailed up like a thistle-seed until he was bumped 


166 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


against the ceiling, and th'3 next settled down, down, 
into the very cellar, and he felt the damp chill and 
feared the rats whose eyes gleamed at him out of the 
dimness of the wine-vaults. Ah, P. had very weari- 
some nights now ! As he was undressing, he heard 
over and over again the sharp crack of the pistol that 
had sent his father uncalled, unprepared, unwelcome, 
into eternity. It was not the blues, such as succeeded 
juvenile parties ; not the ‘ migraine,’ such as had 
pre-empted part of his days at Saratoga, that 
attacked P. now. He was beginning to see little 
devils couchant in his bed-hangings, and queer crea- 
tures swung like tassels to his canopy. 

Good night ! P., when ever did you hear a good 

night, unless it was that one — your first on earth — 
when you slept on Aunt Debby’s knees, and she cried 
over you, and over that still figure in the parlor, and 
the nurse and housekeeper gossipped over the mis- 
fortunes of “ our family.” After that night you were 
put to sleep on gin-sling, and Universal Baby Pan- 
acea, and you ate too much, and dreamed dreams 
which there was no Joseph to interpret, and you could 
not rest because you could not work, and we know 
that Ann told you ghost-stories, — now you are going 
to bed to hear strange noises, to see horrible sights, 
to taka mysterious excursions from basement to attic, 


A MILLICr TOO MUCH. 1G7 

and Aunt Debby says “ Good night !” As for the 
other part, the tremulous “ God bless you !” why, P., 
that is all nonsense to your wise ear ; for you are 
quite satisfied that there is no God ; that there is 
nothing higher and better than your feeble, wine- 
fettered thought can reach ! 

P. w'as still a favorite in society ; he was rather 
fast, the good people admitted, but he would moderate 
his rate of speed some day, and go more slowly to 
destruction. He was a young gentleman of leisure; 
he had some wealthy relatives, cousins and uncles, 
on his mother’s side ; he had the hundred thousand 
dollars which his administrators had not had time to 
use up, and people expected him to get something 
from Aunt Debby, who, it was brilliantly remarked, 
“could not live for ever.” The paternal Snell was 
not the only person who had a spare daughter or two 
from whom P. could select a wife. P. was inclined 
to quarrel with Snell about business ; but Snell 
reasoned mildly with him : “ My dear fellow, did I 
not tell you that the whole mattei rested with Pinch- 
am ? I could not interfere with him. I do not like 
the look of matters now, I must say, but I had con- 
fidence in Pincham ; why, he had a brother whose 
honesty was a proverb all over the city. Who would 


108 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


think that an honest man’s brother would be dis- 
honest ?” 

So in one way and another, by fair words, good 
dinners, pleasant parties, warm welcomes, and plenty 
of flattery, Snell, Esq., coaxed P. back to his house. 
The boy was young and soft, heart-sick and lone- 
some, to tell the truth. He began to think Evelina 
Snell very pretty ; she had blue eyes, yellow curls, 
and the slenderest waist in the world. P. thought 
that was beauty. 

Our young friend liked to call on Evelina; to dance 
with her. He paid her so much attention, that father 
Snell began to give odious little winks when he saw 
the two together, and to remark to mamma Snell that 
P. was a good sort of fellow, and his house was very 
stylish, and likely Miss Hebby Dean had a neat sum 
to tie up. 





CHAPTER TENTH 


f). natjjrs a Crisis. 


* Into this world we come, like ships 
Launched from the docks, and stocks, and slip% 
For fortune fair or fatal.” 





* 






































CHAPTER TENTH. 

P. reaches a Crisis. 



T is quite the style for young men to join 
some club association. P. must be in the 
fashion, and joined one. There are many 
of these organizations which might have been 
recommended to him ; certain “ Sons,” and “ Knights 
Templar,” and “ Good Templars,” and so on, would 
have lent a hand to drag him up out of the quick- 
sands into which he was slowly sliding. P. joined 
none of these. If he had gone over to the “ Young 
Men’s Christian Association,” there might have been 
a rescue for him, and we should have been saved 
writing this history for a warning. Instead, P. joined 
the R. B’s. B. B. might mean “ Royal Brothers,” 
“ Roaring Blades,” or “ Rowdy Boys,” for aught I 
know — not having joined the R. B.’s, one cannot tell 
what the cabalistic letters mean. The R. B.’s had a 
fine room, luxuriously furnished : sofas and chairs 
were gorgeous in red velvet ; the lace curtains were 
all beautiful with lilies and roses, and sprays of fern* 
and heads of wheat, white and delicate as sea-foam ; 

( 171 ) 


172 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


grand chandeliers, with gilded chains, and glittering 
pendants, hung over marble tables, and mosaic tables, 
and tables for billiards, cards, checkers, and dice — * 
any game in fact, good or evil, that could amuse. 
The R. B.’s bad servants and wine ; they ate, drank, 
and were merry. P. was quite fascinated with them ; 
be thought be bad a 4 last found something to interest 
him, something congenial; they drank bis favorite 
drinks ; sang the jolliest songs ; were so witty ; so 
wise. They did not believe these hobgoblin tales of 
immortal spirits ; of a Day of Judgment ; of Heaven 
and Hell; of a Creator and a Judge. The R. B.’s 
all knew better ; and P. was glad to be in their truly 
choice and refined company. 

He was away from home so constantly, out so late, 
or all night, when be went to Mrs. Bently’s “ Happy 
Home,” that Aunt Debby ventured to inquire what 
was being done. She was told that be bad joined a 
“Literary Society.” 

“ That is very nice,” said the simple old lady. 
“You bear, Miss Gale, it is a literary society to 
which P. belongs. I always knew there was more in 
him than people thought.” 

Yes, there was doubtless plenty in P., but nobody 
bad ever taken well-con certed measures for bringing 
it out. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


173 


As for Miss G lie, she was suspicious of the literary 
attainments and pursuits of P.’s literary confreres. 
She judged that they were better acquainted with 
“ Hoyle on Games” than with “ Edwards on the Will 
that they preferred choice Burgundy to Lord Mac- 
caulay ; and took more kindly to rouge-et-noir than 
to the “ Testimony of the Bocks.” 

For all their elegance and their abundant refresh- 
ments our young R. B.’s had to pay heavily. P. was 
making his money fly in royal fashion. His friends 
hinted, or plainly remonstrated, but the young man 
replied that he thought the cash would hold out as 
long as he wanted it ; and indeed, Aunt Debby helped 
the holding out, by seeing to it that P. was never at 
any expense at home, and by paying every bill that 
came to her knowledge. 

Among the chief expenses of the R. B. club, or 
society,* might be counted an annual dinner, on what 
they called their anniversary. This dinner was given 
in magnificent style at a first-class hotel, and to it 
they invited their particular friends. Previous to the 
dinner they had songs and speeches at their society- 
room, and then drove about town in open carriages, 
wearing badges, and striving to attract attention. 

A hundred years ago, courtly and cultivated gentle- 
men thought it no particular disgrace to drink them- 


J74 A MILLION TOO MUCH. 

selves under tlie table. The R. B.’s took the same 
view ; they would have branded him a poltroon who 
was afraid to drink freely, and they had no idea of 
blushing when they became drunk. Hitherto P. had 
never publicly disgraced himself, nor occasioned any 
severe remarks ; it had **een hinted that he was fond 
of a glass of wine, and tnat if he did not have a care 
he might soon drink too much. Teddy had found 
him unable to take care of himself ; Miss Gale and 
Aunt Debby had looked anxiously after his unsteady 
steps as he went to his bed; we remember that a 
policeman had found him sitting on a curbstone, 
hilarious and ridiculous, but that matter had been 
hushed up, and society still spoke well of Mr. P. 
Dean, and had never had occasion to point at him 
the finger of scorn. 

P. was now rapidly passing the bounds of prudence ; 
he was reckless of consequences, careless of condem- 
nation. At the R. B.’s dinner P. was in his element. 
He was one of the masters of ceremonies, and having 
performed his part to every one’s satisfaction until 
wine was set on the table, he began to drink greedily. 
The long table was closely surrounded by young men. 
Large bouquets and beautiful wreaths glowed over 
the whiteness of the damask table linen ; and down 
the whole length of the festive beard decanters cast 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


175 


crimson or golden reflections as the light streamed 
through them ; bottles of what was called choice wine 
stood singly or in groups ; fragile crystal glasses ; 
elegant goblets, cut with a tracery of leaves and 
flowers, sparkled almost as bright as the silverware 
that was abundantly displayed ; while a grand mirror, 
at the lower extremity of the table, caught up and 
reduplicated the brilliant scene in its shining depths. 
Near the upper door of the apartment sat the band 
that had been engaged to furnish music for the occa- 
sion, and servers of wine and brandy were sent be- 
times to the performers. 

The merriment grew furious ; several toasts would 
be shouted forth at once; faces were flushed; eyes 
gleaming ; some overcome already were nodding 
drowsily in their chairs, heedless of the bacchanalian 
din. A madness seized P. He had become furiously 
drunk. He caught an uncorked bottle of champagne 
in one hand and a decanter of brandy in the other, 
and vaulted upon the table with a wild huzza. His 
inebriated companions broke into cheers and laugh- 
ter. P. crashed the bottle and decanter together in 
an ecstasy, and the wine, set free, spirted and foamed 
into his face, and over the splendors of his apparel. 
Laughter now filled the room, and some cried, “ Come 
down, come down ; none of that !” 


176 ^ MILLION TOO MUCH. 

But the distracted Dean had now caught sight of 
himself in the long mirror ; he was too drunk to 
recognise his own semblance, and frantically imagined 
that here was some enemy mocking him with absurd 
gestures. Full of wrath, he stooped down, and, 
grasping whatever bottles and glasses came to hand, 
flung them crashing through the mocking mirror. 
Waiters rushed to the rescue, but were prevented 
from seizing P. by the crowd shouting and gesticulat- 
ing, upbraiding and laughing about the table, making 
ineffectual efforts to grasp P.’s active legs and pull 
him down. 

The very demon of destruction was rampant in this 
young man ; he dexterously seized bottles, and struck 
at the heads of his assailants ; he kicked the orna- 
mental silverware right and left; he made a clean 
sweep of one end of the table by an agile use of his 
right leg, and dashed glass and silver, liquids and 
solids, on the floor. For a few minutes the room was 
full of cries and oaths and the crash of breaking 
glass. The waiters, the landlord, and the loungers 
in the bar-room ran to look ; the band dropped their 
instruments, and yelled with laughter. P. was caught 
by head, arms, and legs, and, dragged from the table, 
was held extended among his captors, still denouncing 
the man who had gibed and flouted at him in the mir- 


A MIL LIOIT TOO MUCH. 


177 


ror. Ignominiously was the master of ceremonies 
carried to a small upper room, and put to bed, there 
to recover his senses, remember, and be ashamed. 
The anniversary dinner broke up in confusion, and 
all night the hotel servants were busy repairing 
damages. 

The third day after this the irate landlord sent P. 
a bill of eleven hundred dollars for damages. This 
P. walked down and paid without a murmur, but by 
this restitution he could not check the current of 
remark and scandal. Every one was talking against 
him : those who had fostered the love of drink in him, 
those who had evoked the demon in the innocent boy, 
now held up their hands in horror and protested at 
his drunkenness. P. knew very well why Aunt Debby 
fell ill and kept her bed for a week, but Miss Gale 
never said why ; she met him on the same good terms 
as ever, pitying the poor young sinner with all her 
heart, and feeling that this was not the time for up- 
braiding. Perhaps P.’s heart was a little softened by 
her wise kindness, for he hung about her and grew 
more confidential, refraining also from all remarks 
that were displeasing to her. Neither did Evelina 
Snell berate him : Evelina cried a little when she first 
heard of the fracas, cried not because P. had done 
wrong, and was in danger of doing even worse, but 


178 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


because she feared people would laugh at him, and 
say unpleasant tilings of her. 

Miss Gale and Teddy Green tried more than eyer 
to get P. to go into business ; so did Dr. Roxwell. 
They suggested country life, a farm with a nice resi- 
dence, and an overseer hired to look after the work ; 
they proposed a long trip overland with some one ex- 
perienced in buying furs ; they offered to get him a 
chance to go with an exploring expedition ; they 
recommended a partnership in a lumber business, and 
that P. should go up into Maine for awhile, but the 
young man sullenly and decidedly rejected all advice. 

P. had sinned grievously, and society made him 
know it, by averted looks and caustic speeches. 

The “ R. B.’s” felt their honorable clique disgraced 
by the frantic interruption of their dinner, and though 
P. had paid damages, they ignominiously expelled 
him from their number, a circumstance which might 
have been of great advantage to the victim if he had 
cnly known how to use it. But being deprived of the 
companionship of the brilliant “ R. B.’s,” he spent 
most of his evenings playing billiards in a saloon with 
a “bar” attached to it, where he partook freely of 
brandy and water. In one way and another P. con- 
trived to lose a little money here, and losing .made 
him cross. He had the diversion of growling and 


A MILLION TOO MUCH-. 


179 


disputing every evening, and on one unlucky occa- 
sion he doubled up his fists and shook them in his 
opponent’s face. “ Ah, ha!” said that person, aggra- 
vatingly, “ do you take me for that fellow you saw in 
the glass at the R. B. dinner ? You mashed his head 
with a decanter, you know, and what did it cost 
you?” 

By way of reply to this taunt, P. knocked the 
speaker down, but he sprung up again in a second, 
and gave P. a black eye. The combatants were 
parted presently, and P., feeling quite unfit to go 
home, his eye being bruised and his coat torn, con- 
cluded to put into Mrs. Bently’s “ ’Appy ’Ome ’Otel” 
for repairs. Just as he reached the door, the fellow 
with whom he had quarrelled came after him, and re- 
newed the attack. 

In the light of the street gas, and the red light 
which came through the windows of Mrs. Bently’s 
sanctum, P. went into the quarrel in such loud earnest 
that a policeman came up to stop the fight. The one 
rioter fled incontinently, but P. having lost his last 
morsel of sense, pulled out a mite of a revolver, which 
looked about as terrible as a pea-shooter, and fired 
one impotent shot at the policeman’s head ; he went 
so wide of the mark that the bit of a ball flew through 
Mrs. Bently’s sign, and P., being seized, was the 


180 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


second time locked up by tbe police, but now on 
charge of “ riotous conduct, and violent assault of an 
officer.” 

When P. came to his senses, next morning, he 
cursed his unhappy stars, as if the planets had any- 
thing to do with getting him into disgrace. 

Teddy Green had now advanced to the position of 
newspaper reporter; Teddy had studied hard, and 
had made bold to imitate Benjamin Franklin, and 
contribute small articles to the paper on which he 
worked. He had grown in favor, and was climbing 
upwards at a very moderate rate, having only his own 
honest endeavors to look to. 

Teddy going about the city for last items for his 
paper, had learned of P.’s misconduct, and its conse- 
quences. We may be sure that Teddy did not seize 
the bit of scandal, to make an amusing paragraph of 
it as a relish for the breakfast of those two unfortu- 
nate women, Aunt Debby and Miss Gale. Instead, 
he sent a note to the ex-governess, telling her the 
cause of P.’s absence, and where he might be found, 
if he were looked after. 

Miss Gale went for Dr. Boxw T ell to help her in the 
trouble, for she knew that the doctor was one of her 
reckless boy’s best friends. 

The two found P. in a dismal little room, having a 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


181 


email iron bedstead -with dirty covers, and a rickety 
table. On the table stood a bowl of porridge and 
molasses, with a battered iron spoon stuck up in the 
middle. It is needless to say that P. had utterly con- 
temned this poor fare, and he now lay on the pallet, 
his face to the wall ; his muddy boots kicked off ; his 
hair uncombed; his face unwashed, and marred by 
last evening’s strife ; his coat torn ; his shirt-front 
rent ; his necktie vanished ; his watch, chain, ring, 
and pocket-book put somewhere for safe-keeping by 
his captors. 

“Well, well, well!” said Dr. Roxwell, and his 
mind made a hasty review of this young man’s life ; 
the splendor of his early prospects; the luxurious 
indulgence ; he could see as in a picture the babe 
with three nurses, in his grand nursery, or taking a 
state progress through the streets. Aunt Debby’s 
petted boy, dressed in velvets, giving juvenile parties, 
and assisted on in learning and in life by every tender 
device for saving him trouble, and giving him his own 
way. “ Well, well, well !” said the doctor again. 

“ 0, P., my dear P. ! how sorry I am for you ! 
We must get you out of this and take you home, and 
try and do better, all of us !” cried Miss Gale. 

“ I won’t go home,” said the dishevelled P., sulkily. 

“ Ah ! now, no one knows a word of this ; it is 


182 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


not in the papers, and won’t be. Teddy Green let 
us hear of it; he is such a good fellow. If you 
don’t like to go home, we will go out in the country 
to see my uncle ; I’d like it so well. Sit up, P. ; do, 
now, and the doctor will try and settle your business 
over at the court, and bring us a hack to go home in.” 

“ I wish he’d been to my funeral yesterday, instead 
of his cousin Nancy’s,” said P., morbidly. 

“ You must not say that , my boy. I tell you you 
are far from being ready to die.” 

“ Being ready to die is all bosh,” said P., defiantly. 

“No, it is not,” said Miss Gale, “you know better. 
You feel in your own heart that you are more than a 
dog or a bird to drop dead and be nothing evermore. 
And you know just as well that you’d be perfectly 
wretched in Heaven if you were taken there this 
minute just as you are, for you don’t like good things, 
and don’t love God. My dear fellow, to live is the 
very best thing that can befall you, and you have only 
to try and get some comfort out of that estate. Why, 
boy, the world lies before you. You have yet money, 
and friends, and health ; and you can make more 
according to your wish, if you’ll set about it. Come, 
P., you must turn over a new leaf and reform ; get a 
nice wife to make home lively and homelike to you, 
and be a man. This is a sad tumble, but pick your- 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


183 


self up, and be a man hereafter. When you were a 
little fellow you could do anything you put your 
mind to.” 

Dr. Roxwell had gone out on his errand, feeling 
himself quite overcome by P.’s forlorn condition. 

Miss Gale had pulled her former pupil from his 
crouching by the wall as she spoke, and now he lay 
with his head on the dirty straw pillow, looking up 
into her face, as she bent over him, pitying, reprov- 
ing, encouraging. He caught the ends of her shawl, 
and hid his face in them, sobbing out: “ 0, I wish I 
were a little boy in the school-room with you again ; 
and that I could come up to live better and be happy.” 

“You can live better and be happy all the same,” 
said Miss Gale, as her tears dropped on his rumpled 
hair, while she smothered it with her hand. “You 
must settle to some work, so you will not be tempted 
by idleness to go to these places where you get into 
so much trouble. It is unmanly, my dear P., to live 
without any motive, and without any good result. 
Life is for honest effort, and for fair success, not for 
a general row. You are capable of something far 
better than you have yet sought after. I say it, P., 
who have known it since you were five years old.” 

“ It’? no use,” moaned P. “ I’m always coming to 
grief, l get to those places, and there’s an end of 
me. Why are people allowed to have traps to catch 


184 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


us poor weak fellows in every turn of the street ? I 
can’t do any better, and there is no use talking !” 

“ You can do better, my dear fellow, if you begin 
in the right way,” said Miss Gale, sitting down on 
the edge of the bed and looking earnestly at P. “ A 
man can make no progress in goodness when he 
reviles and rejects the Fountain of all goodness. 
‘Every good and every perfect gift is from above, 
and cometh down from the Father of Lights and 
you, my poor boy, even deny his existence. I should 
think, P., that the known evil of your own heart, the 
manner in which you sin and are sinned against, 
would convince you of an adversary to your goodness 
and happiness, stronger than you can conquer. But 
you see, P., that all men do not sin and fall and suffer 
as you do. There are many that shine in virtue and 
in peace; whose lives are blessed and a blessing, 
whom we all love and honor perforce. This is not 
because they are naturally better or stronger or 
wiser than you ; but because they have gotten help 
where you have scorned it ; because they have obeyed 
the commands of a Master and Father, whom you 
ignore to your own destruction. Take the right 
means, my P., and you will secure the desired end. 
Cease this vain babbling of infidelity ; submit to God, 
and he will raise you up. All life is before you ; 
everything good is possible to you. You can rise 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


185 


superior to all these downfalls and temptations. 
They talk of wild oats, P. — I think you have sowed 
and harvested of them pretty plentiful^ already.” 

P.’s hard short sobs had ceased; he listened atten- 
tively. 

“ When I talk to you, and hear you,” he said, “ it 
seems as if I could be something and do right. Then 
in a little time the feeling is gone, and I am in 
trouble as before.” 

“ But now you will truly try and do better ; try in 
the right way, will you not ?” 

“ Yes, I will try,” said P. 

Then he got up from the horrible pallet ; put on 
his boots ; left his coat for the warden or the next 
comer ; put on the spring overcoat which the doctor 
had brought him; fastened up his necktie; straight- 
ened his cap, and crushed it over his shaggy hair and 
black eye, and began tramping uneasily up and down 
the narrow limits of his cell ; while Miss Gale sat on 
the edge of the bed, recalling the past as the doctor 
had recalled it; sympathizing with the present; 
trembling for the future ; wondering if her boy would 
now reform. 

At home, Aunt Debby cried softly over her prayers 
and her Bible, and wondered if it were at all her 
fault that P. had reached this crisis in his history. 

















































CHAPTER ELEVENTH 


folut Court to t|t $estut« 


“ Of letting loose rapine and murder, 
To go just so far and no further ; 
And setting all the land on fire, 

To burn just so high, and no higher .* 








CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 



Police Court to the Rescue. 

HAD said that “ he would try” — we cannot 
tell whether he kept his promise or not ; if he 
did, his keeping was of poor fashion enough. 
Perhaps by this time he was incapable of strong 
effort, or high resolution. Moral purpose in P. had 
been probably still-born ; surely it had never been 
fostered, and taught, and equipped to be a captain 
over the spiritual being, leading obedient powers to 
grand conquest. P.’s faculties were disorganized 
and demoralized ; and his trying was like the last 
feeble flutter of the singed moth, fallen dying out 
of the flame. 

Dr. Roxwell wanted to know who was responsible 
for this. Was P. to blame for not having been 
dowered with virtues before his birth ? for having 
been left so wretchedly untrained ? Was he to blame 
for finding himself now too weak to resist temptation, 
and too blind to discern clearly between good and 
evil ? 


1189 ) 


190 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


“ Who hath sinned, this man or his parents ? That 
is what I want to know ; and by parents I mean all 
these people who have had charge of him — nurses 
and servants, guardians, Aunt Debby, and Professor 
Easy, with the other teachers. Dear me ! who can 
be to blame among all of them ?” 

Thus spoke Dr. Roxwell, addressing his cousin 
Nancy’s tombstone. The loss of Cousin Nancy fell 
heavily on the doctor ; she had been such an admirable 
listener, that her like would never be found again. 

“ Business !” said P., when some sort of occupation 
was urged upon him. “ What business can I do ? I 
can’t open a hotel ?” 

“ Shocking ! No ; of course not,” said Aunt 
Debby 

“ And grandfather and father were liquor-dealers ; 
but I don’t know as I could undertake the business.” 

“By no means; it would be the ruin of you!” 
cried Miss Gale-. 

“Past spoiling, by this time,” said P., indifferently. 
“Well, I have no profession, and I’ve never been 
used to study or thinking, or talking. I cannot set 
up as a politician.” 

“ There are other things to turn to — farming,” said 
Miss Gale. 


A MILLION TOO MUOH. 


191 


“ Farming! I hate the country, and should die 
of a quiet life.’ , 

“ It would be free from temptations which are fatal 
to you.” 

“ Ah ! but I believe I like the temptations,” said 
]\, perversely. 

“ Manufactures — commerce — stores of all kinds,” 
said Aunt Debby. 

“ Don’t bother me,” said P. “ I can’t do any- 
thing. Don’t you know, Aunt Debby, I was never 
brought up to do anything. The maid laced my 
shoes ; the waiter spread my bread, and put my egg 
into the cup, when I was twelve years old ; and you 
did my sums, Aunt Debby, if Miss Gale set me hard 
ones ; and yet I do believe I should have liked books 
and study, if I had been allowed a chance. Lo ! the 
work of your hands !” 

This was very bitter to Aunt Debby. She began 
to see dimly the folly, and even sin, of her manage- 
ment of her nephew. We have dreamed dreams of 
standing on a narrowing space, and seeing two great 
walls drawing together from either side, to crush us. 
So Aunt Debby saw now looming up on the one hand 
the errors and mismanagement of P.’s childhood, and 
on the other, the dim foreshadowing of their dire 


192 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


effect. These things were crushing her poor well 
meaning old heart. 

“P.,” said Miss Gale, “ what is going to be done 
to save you ? You are on the verge of ruin.” 

“ Just toppling over,” admitted P. 

“ Then, how can we help you ?” 

“ There is no way,” said P. “ If there were any 
strong power to take hold of me, to threaten me with a 
knife to my throat, and resolutely kill or cure me, the 
problem of my existence would be solved, somehow, 
immediately. Sometimes I think of what I used to 
read in history of the code of Draco, and the iron laws 
of Lycurgus, when a man’s daily living was looked 
after, and a man’s crime against himself was a crime 
against the state and visited accordingly, and I wish 
I had lived under such a government.” 

“ Would you like to be a mere puppet, and shift 
all responsibility for your own actions?” 

“ If one has ceased to be a responsible agent, it is 
well to be taken care of. I shall go out by-and-by — I 
shall pass an open door, where I shall see fellows that 
I know, laughing and drinking and beckoning — I 
shall see the liquor that plays the mischief with me — 
I shall smell it — I shall go in and drink it, and I 
cannot tell you whether I shall get home safely, or 
whether I shall come to grief, and be brought up in a 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


193 


station-house, or whether I shall die out somewhere, 
like a spark of fire in the darkness, and never be 
heard of any more.” 

“ 0, how can you talk so? how can you do so?” 
cried Miss Gale. 

“ The trouble is that the shop is open, and the 
fellows are there, and the liquor is there. Suppose I 
walked through all the city, and did not find one 
groggery, one wholesale or retail liquor-store, one 
bar, one place at all where liquors were sold ? If I 
could absolutely get nothing stronger than Saratoga 
water, lemonade, or the nectar out of a soda-fountain, 
you might see me coming home early, safe and 
sound; getting more of a man every day, and capable 
of doing something by-and-by. If it had been so 
since I was born, I would not be lying here now, 
as nearly ruined as can be without being gone 
altogether.” 

P. got up, and lounged out of the room. 

“ 0, for a strong, well-maintained prohibitory 
law !” cried Miss Gale. 

“My. dear,” suggested Aunt Debby, “we do not 
want tyrannical laws to make slaves of us — we are 
a free people.” 

“We could not be made slaves by a iaw made by 
ourselves, for our own protection,” said Miss Gale. 

- N 


194 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


“ But it seems that we have no right to legislate 
what a man shall eat and drink. Has he not a right 
to put into his mouth whatever he pleases?” 

“ No,” said the governess. “ It is right to control 
everything for the greatest good of the greatest 
number, and attain the highest happiness. We assert 
the right to frame laws forbidding the sale of poisons, 
except to responsible parties for a known and legiti- 
mate use : the law is often evaded ; parties are 
deceived ; but it is there, and should be enforced to 
the very letter. We know it is a just and proper 
law ; and the greatest evil-working, soul-and-body- 
destroying poison of all, is sold openly by the barrel, 
and people cry out that it would not be just to forbid 
its manufacture and its sale.” 

“ Ah, yes. But, after all, it is not like laudanum, 
prussic acid, or strychnine,” said Aunt Debby. 

“ It takes a good deal to do the work that a small 
portion of those poisons will effect — it is slower in its 
working, but, after all, not less painful. People 
suffer a drunkard’s death a thousand times before he 
dies ; he breaks the hearts of his family for years. 
It would be less cruel if he were killed at once by the 
poison, if he must only die by it after all.” 

“ I’m just as anxious for P. as you are. I’d give 
my life to see’ him reformed. God knows, Miss Gale, 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


195 


I would willingly have died for that boy, any day 
since he was born ; my days have not so very much 
good left in them that I should desire their prolonga- 
tion. But when we get talking of this temperance 
question, do you know I get all mixed up. It is so 
different from anything that I was brought up to. 
In my young days even ministers drank both wine 
and whiskey, and no harm was thought of it.” 

“Yes,” said Dr. Boxwell, who had walked in. 
“ They primed for the pulpit, possibly, with a good 
glass of brandy ; and some of them are now opposed 
to total abstinence. I think very many of those who 
drank as they pleased twenty, thirty, fifty years since, 
would now go in for absolute prohibition, because they 
see the effects of the example on the mass, and the 
horrible and spreading evils of intemperance.” 

“ If it was a sin then, it is a sin now,” said Aunt 
Debby ; “ and I have always heard temperance people 
called fanatics.” 

“Some of them are fanatics, having more zeal in 
their hearts than knowledge in their heads, and so 
bring the cause into disrepute — but it is safest to err 
on the right side. Moreover, most of the agitators of 
the temperance question are gentlemen and scholars, 
whole-hearted philanthropists, and worthy of our 
grateful support. When one claims that the use of 


196 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


wine or liquor is a sin, per se, one makes a claim that 
cannot be logically proved or supported, and presently 
runs into fanaticism.” 

“ And some say it is wrong to use wine in the Sa- 
crament.” 

“ Then they say what they have no right to say — 
I don’t believe — yes, I am sure that it is impossible 
that it can he proven that the wine tasted at the com- 
munion-table ever caused or re-aroused the craving 
for strong drink ; and, at all events, when Christ 
without doubt did take wine and bread, and dividing 
it, say, ‘ This do,’ I, for one, shall be perfectly con- 
tent to do it, an»d feel that I am doing right.” 

“ And how about the wine and brandy in medicine 
prescribed by physicians?” asked Miss Gale. 

“ I don’t use it, for fear of doing more harm than 
good ; though I have had a plenty of patients with 
whom I would have been perfectly safe in prescribing 
it. It takes us a long while to learn physical facts, 
Miss Gale, and we are ever making new discoveries 
in medicine. I have a very ancient medical book, 
which instructs us how to cure idiots, by rubbing the 
head wHh an oil made out of a man’s skull and other 
ingredients. I need not tell you we do not now deal 
with idiocy in that fashion. Maybe, a hundred years 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


197 


from now, some of our present prescriptions may have 
become obsolete.” 

Still, as they talked at home, P., the object of their 
cares and fears, wandered on his way, and found a 
net spread at the head of every street, to take the 
sons of the nation, as Isaiah saw in vision. 

“ The law,” says St. Paul, “is holy, and the com- 
mandment is holy, just, and good.” He was speaking 
of the law and commandment of our God, and not 
of men ; for the civil law is given to calling good evil, 
and evil good ; or, in other words, what is evil may 
become good by payment of certain dollars and cents ; 
what is lawful as a cause, is criminal as an effect. 

To murder your neighbor is a capital crime ; never- 
thel \ss, you may murder your neighbor in a perfectly 
legal manner, if you pay, say twenty dollars for a 
license, and proceed to the deed in a sufficiently 
leisurely manner. You cannot cut off A. B. in the 
prime of his days with a dose of strychnine, and be 
uncondemned. The state cries out for vengeance on 
the destroyer. The state, at heavy cost, tries, con- 
demns, and executes you. And yet, if you pay the 
state your twenty dollars, you may sell A. B. two 
hundred dollars’ worth of strychnine whiskey, which 
shall so madden him that he will first cut his wife’s 
throat and then his own. The state will then raise 


198 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


no lamentations for him; he will be pronounced a fool 
who did not know the limit of his strength, and a 
villain whom society is well rid of. Meanwhile, if you 
have dealt with C. and D., and all the rest of the 
alphabet, as you did with A. B., and have made 
enough by the operation to ride in a carriage, and 
give election treats, you may reasonably look forward 
to going to Congress, to help frame laws which shall 
make your murder-license cheaper, and your whiskey- 
profits heavier. 

Licenses and liquor-taxes are a source of emolu 
ment to the Government ; fires, thefts, murders, and 
trials in courts, big and little, are an expense to the 
state ; the latter w T ould more than overbalance the 
former ; if people would take the trouble to consider, 
it would be seen that the liquor trade is i source of 
impoverishment rather than of gain, and beyond the 
money loss we must set the loss of men. Rachel is 
bereaved of her children. 

The unfortunate young man whose history we 
chronicle had now reached a point where he grew 
reckless of opinions, and careless of disgrace. He 
belonged to a class in society whose faults have fre- 
quently been overlooked, and who have supposed 
that, through courtesy, they should escape punish- 
ment ; whereas, on the principle that where u much 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


199 


is gi7en, much shall he required,” they merit ad- 
ditional severity, because they have had unusual 
opportunity ; the influence of their had example is 
greater; the debt they owe society is heavier P.’s 
errors could no longer be ignored, and his appear- 
ances in the police court were frequent. As in days 
gone by they dealt with the maniac with stripes and 
chains and foul dungeons, now they deal with the rum 
maniac with fines and imprisonment ; and there is just 
as much likelihood of success in the one case as in the 
other. 

The fines and imprisonment are just what is needed, 
applied in the right quarter ; for instance, to the 
maker and vender of liquors that intoxicate. When 
you get to the drunkard, you find a man sick in body 
and non compos mentis , and you must heal, and not 
punish. The magistrate should know of some hospital 
for drunkards, some infirmary for topers, some mad- 
house for delirium tremens, and have power to send 
his culprit there for the right kind of treatment. 

“ We’’re a ’avin’ werry good times just now,” says 
little Mollie O’Shane. “ Mammy’s been in the ’Ouse 
of Correction for three week, an’ daddy was only out 
a week when he got shut up agin, an’ we ’as werry 
good times, Pat an’ me.” 

If said “ daddy” had been where he could have 


200 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


been given medical treatment, instead of an absurd 
imprisonment, the disgrace and confinement of which 
made not the slightest impression on Mr. O’ Shane’s 
blunted sensibilities, Mollie and her wee brother might 
have seen even better days yet. 

We leave you to consider what sort of an appetizer 
such a paragraph as this in the morning paper proved 
to Aunt Debby and Miss Gale : — 

“ Before Alderman Beitler, for drunkenness, P. 
Dean ; fined five dollars and costs.” 

“ Officer Murphy yesterday evening arrested P. 
Dean, and a young man, name unknown, on charge 
of drunkenness and riotous conduct.” 

“ A riot of a serious character took place on Mon- 
day evening at a tavern kept on Water street by Mrs. 
Bently. A young man, named P. Dean, belonging 
to one of the first families in the city — a millionaire, 
says report — struck an old man on the head with a 
bottle of Rocky Mountain Bitters. The injury was 
quite severe, and the wounded man was taken to the 
hospital. Dean was brought before Justice Norton, 
and gave bail for his appearance when called for.” 

In one year P. spent three weeks — all days and 
parts of days being counted- -in jail. He paid three 
hundred and sixty-nine df liars for fines and damages ; 
his name appeared fourteen times in the police columns 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


201 


of the city papers; he was at different times days in 
bed, amounting to four weeks, recovering from injuries 
received in drunken brawls ; he lost two front teeth, 
and had a scar across his chin, tokens not of valor 
but of whiskey bouts ; he paid Mrs. Bently five hun- 
dred dollars for bed, board, attendance, and hush- 
money — a sum, she assured him, much below her true 
bill, but the reduction “ was on account of her devoted 
affection for, and undying interest in, a young man to 
whom she had been as a mother.” 

“My dear boy,” said Miss Gale, sitting by the bed 
where P. lay, with his head bound up. “ You speak 
of the law ; I am sure it has taken you in hand, and 
I cannot see that you are at all benefited.” 

“No,” sighed P. “There’s a screw loose some- 
where.” 

“ This fining and imprisoning drunkards is all bosh,” 
said Dr. Roxwell, from his station at the window. 
“ The disgrace is nothing ; they don’t care for it ; 
and you might as well talk of shutting a lunatic up 
fourteen days for his lunacy, or fining a madman five 
dollars for being mad. You’ve got to take hold of 
drunkards another way entirely.” 

“ I’ll tell yen whom they ought to fine,” cried P , 
sitting up in bed. 


202 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


“My dear P., do lie down,” remonstrated Miss 
Gale. 

“ They ought to fine that old hag, Bently, who 
makes the drunkards with her 4 Rocky Mountain Cor- 
dial,’ and 4 Mountain Bitters.’ They ought to fine 
her so heavily that she’d have to sell out the whole 
concern to pay it.” 

P. gesticulated wildly with his fists ; and Miss Gale 
entreated, 44 Oh ! P., my dear, do control yourself, and 
lie down.” 

44 I’ll tell you who ought to go to prison — yes, for 
life — Curdle & Sons, importers of wines and brandies. 
I’ll tell you where the law should interfere — -with Max- 
well Brothers, wholesale and retail liquor-dealers ; half 
a million they’re worth, and government should confis- 
cate the whole of it. Who is it they should haul up 
in court and reprimand, and disgrace, and all that ? 
Why, it is Langley, with that accursed first-class bar 
in his hotel ; and Pingle with his grand saloon ; and 
Huxford, with his 4 Metropolitan Retreat.’ ” 

44 Yes; that’s the truth, P.,” said Dr. Roxwell. 
“But you’d better lie down, and think no more 
about it.” 

44 1 will think about it. These liquor-sellers, like 
so many ” 

44 P., you will certainly be worse,” urged Miss Gale. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


203 


“I’d be glad to be dead,” vociferated P. — — like 
so many highwaymen, attack me, plunder me, leave 
me half dead, and up steps the wisdom of the law, 
and fines me for obstructing the public way with 
my maimed and insensible carcass. I’m robbed by 
Pingle, and Huxford, and the Maxwell Brothers, 
and the Court sends me to jail for not taking better 
care of my money. Here’s a man pays thirty dollars 
for his license to sell, but I can’t get any license to 
drink. Ah ha ! They know I’ll drink without a 
license, and be fined for it, and go to the lock-up for it — 
so the state imagines it makes money out of both of 
us, buyer and seller ; but when you come to foot up 
the bills, and the expenses for trials, and for courts, 
and for injury to public property, and support of 
public institutions, why, you’ll see that the state has 
been penny wise and pound foolish ; it has been gain- 
ing by tens and losing by thousands, by jingo !” — and 
the unhappy orator flounced himself over, buried his 
bandaged head in a corner by the wall, and jerked 
the bed-clothes into an uncomfortable pile. 

“Doctor,” said Miss Gale, “I’m afraid the poor 
fellow has gone crazy.” 

“That is the most sensible speech he has ever 
made ; pity that he won’t profit by his own wisdom,” 
said the doctor, gruffly. 


204 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Here came in Aunt Debby, who bad been making 
ineffectual efforts to get a nap. No longer the comely 
lady who superintended the baby heir’s morning bath, 
or, gracious and lovely, received her callers on New 
Year’s Hay; but a haggard woman, with deep-set, 
tear-blinded eyes ; wrinkles cut down into her face 
like watercourses ; a sharp chin, its rounded pretti- 
ness worn away long ago ; a nose like an eagle’s beak, 
and thin hair, white as snow. 

“ Didn’t I hear my poor child speaking ?” asked 
Aunt Debby, drawing her shawl about her thin, bent 
shoulders, and stepping very feebly. “ 0, my poor 
love, w T hat can help him !” 

“Nothing, I fear,” said Dr. Roxwell. “There is 
no help in us selfish sinners, and he won’t look 
higher up.” 



CHAPTER TWELFTH. 

®lje Jisgliim litinrialus Jim. 


“ Heavy to get, and hard to hold, 

Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold, 

Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled, 

Spurned by the young, and hugged by the old 
To the very edge of the churchyard mould.” 



CHAPTER TWELFTH. 

The Asylum undertahes P. 


f VER impending over the inebriate is the 
drunkard’s horrible delirium — mania d potu, 
P. had seen the bed going up and down — 
he had seen queer creatures swinging in 
hideous sport to his bed’s canopy; he had shrunk 
from the eyes of rats that gleamed on him from grim 
corners — but feeling, fearing, and shrinking, he had 
known that these w r ere only fancies, one part of the 
brain had reasoned, while the other imagined, and P. 
had borne up against these horrors. 

P.’s conduct had of late been such that the pater- 
nal Snell had withdrawn patronage from him; had 
ceased winking and hinting, and had very nearly 
concluded that a marriage between P. and Evelina 
was not to be thought of, because it was evident that 
the last hundred thousand out of that million was 
rapidly melting away. 

Poor P. had given Evelina his picture, and she had 

( 207 ) 


208 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


promised him hers in return. He called one evening 
to get it. 

“ Pa says I can’t give it to you,*’ said Evelina, re- 
luctantly. 

“Can’t! why not?” demanded P. ; “what’s up, 
now ?” 

“It’s all your own fault, P.,” whimpered Evelina ; 
“ you are not behaving right — you will get into such 
disgraceful trouble. People say you drink too much, 
P. — why will you ? You see it is all your own fault 
that Pa won’t let me give it to you.” 

Evelina was growing incoherent, and P. shouted, 
angrily,— 

“ My fault ! it’s their fault. Your father gave me 
drink plenty of times ; offered it to me ; forced it on 
me. So did your mother — so did you .” 

“ Ah, but everybody likes a little ; the trouble with 
you is, that you take too much.” 

“ Much, and little, is it ? Who is going to find out 
what is much and what is little ? Little for one, is 
much for another, and when a fellow gets going he 
don’t know where to stop, and everybody begins to 
drop down on him.” 

Evelina, weeping, assured P. that she did not wish 
to drop down on him in this offensive manner ; on the 
contrary, the unhappy Evelina was ready to stand by 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


209 


P., and let people drop down on both of them, if 
people were so cruel. 

“ I’m just what all of you folks, and everybody 
else, have been making of me ever since I was born,” 
said P., sulkily ; “ and everybody turns against me, 
and you turn against me ; and, confound it all ! I’ll 
go and hang myself, and be done with it.” 

“I don’t turn against you,” sobbed Evelina, “ and 
I never will. You must not talk of hanging your- 
self — don’t, P., don’t do it ; say you won’t — promise 
me.” 

“ Will yoru promise me you’ll marry me ?” asked P. 

“ Well — yes — I will ; only I don’t know what pa ’ll 
say.” 

“ And where’s that picture ?” demanded P., push- 
ing his advantage. 

“ It’s in my pocket,” said Evelina, slowly producing 

it. 

“ Give it to me, then,” said P., taking it without 
any great ardor; “and to-morrow I’ll bring you a 
ring, and we’ll see what your father will say. It is a 
poor time for him to turn against me, after ill his 
encouragement, and I won’t stand it.” 

P. was grumbling at Snell, instead of going into 
any raptures over Evelina and the promise she had 
just made him. He was not very lover-like, and the 


o 


210 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


poor child felt it. She had no undying devotion for 
P., not a particle of respect for him ; the fancy which 
his attentions and her parent’s hints had fostered, 
she called love. It was but a poor, faint shadow of a 
grand emotion ; but it was all Evelina knew, and she 
was ready to cry that P. should be occupied in quar- 
relling against her father, rather than saying fond 
words to her. 

“ Pa won’t object, P., if — if you will only he care- 
ful. You must not drink so much, not enough to get 
into trouble. Say you give it up, P., and go into 
business ; I think it would be so nice. Can’t you 
have a fine store, like young Curtis?” 

“I’m not up to that sort of thing,” replied P. 

“ And about the other, why, say you’ll be careful, 
and not drink so much.” 

“ Confound it !” cried P., “ I guess I know how to 
take care of myself. You never mind, Evelina — 
there, now, what are you crying for? Yes, I’ll be 
careful after this; will that suit you?” 

Evelina wiped her eyes, and smiled. “ What will 
your Aunt Debby say, when she hears we are — en- 
gaged?” she asked, half shyly. 

“ 0, she won’t say anything. Yes, she will, too ; 
she’ll be glad of it, and think I’ll settle down — and 
so I mean to, Evelina.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


211 


It was a forlorn sort of engagement. P. stayed for 
an hour or so, unmolested by the heads of the house- 
hold, as is too much the fashion, then kissed his Eve- 
lina good-bye, and went away with the picture in 
his pocket, leaving his betrothed to keep her secret to 
herself, or tell it, and receive the congratulations or 
the anathemas of the family, as might happen. He 
meant to go home, tell Aunt Debby, and have a rea- 
sonable talk with Miss Gale. 

P. was not desperately in love with his Evelina. He 
had no great amount of affection to bestow on any- 
body ; the fashion of his life had been such as to kill 
his noblest feelings. Still, he liked the girl ; he had 
been thrown into her society ; he was aroused to com- 
bat the recreant Snell ; spite and fancy together had 
made him propose the marriage, and now he meant to 
carry out the plan, thinking it would do as well as 
anything. 

A new feeling of responsibility came upon him ; he 
was ready to settle down to something, to try and fill 
a man’s legitimate position ; he would be at the head 
of a household, and he would be steady now; the 
wild )ats were sown ; he’d go home and talk to Miss 
Gale, and be as reliable as Teddy Green. 

Heaven pity this poor fellow ! He passed the win- 
dow of a liquor-store ; a store all lighted and bril- 


212 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


liant ; a window where bottles and decanters, jugs and 
demijohns and liquor-cases were piled in a great 
pyramid, the gas-lights showing them off, shining 
through them, lighting them up ; bouquets grouped 
here and there skilfully, and pictures in the back- 
ground. The door stood half-open, and two or three 
of P.’s rowdy friends, in good broadcloth and firfe 
boots, were going in at it. 

“ Ah, P. ! Come in, come in !” 

“ Give us your arm, old boy ; we’re in for a par- 
ticularly jolly time.” 

“ Now we’re complete with you here ; that’s it, my 
gay boy; here’s to the king of the frolic !” 

The last speaker took P.’s arm, and pulled him 
along. One half-uttered “not to-night,” one little 
hesitation on the door-sill, one unfelt pull from the 
enticing clasp of his arm, and now P. had gone fairly 
in with them. That talk with Miss Gale ; the an- 
nouncement that was to please our Aunt Debby, were 
alike forgotten. We are so sorry for you, poor 
Evelina ! 

This was early in the evening. P. drank fiery 
draughts the next hour, and Teddy Green met him 
on the street with his three tempters, and comrades, 
giving signs of high excitement. Teddy would not 
pass him by ; he stopped and spoke ; took his arm ; 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


213 


invited, urged; secured his company; they walked 
on together towards home, the shrill songs of the 
other young men dying in the distance. 

“ Strange how my head feels !” said P. to Teddy. 
“ It’s bursting, Green. I feel the hot blood boiling 
through it ; it sings and roars — can’t you hear it ?” 

« Teddy took him home. It was only a little after 
ten o’clock, and Miss Gale and Aunt Debby were glad 
to see him in so early. Teddy acted as valet, went 
with him to his room, bathed his head, bound it up in 
cold water, got him into bed, gave him a quieting drink, 
and saw him presently drop asleep. Then he went 
down to say “ good-night, and all safe,” to the ladies 
in the back parlor, and so to go home where all was 
safe, and to a night that was good, with the sleep that 
blesses honest toil and a clear conscience. 

The two ladies did not go early to bed. Their easy 
manner of life did not tire them greatly ; they were 
used to sit up to all sorts of hours, listening for P.’s 
uncertain steps. Aunt Debby was nervous, and did 
not find sleep coming readily, and Miss Gale pitied 
her, and sat up to read aloud, while the old lady 
worked quite aimlessly at fancy knitting. 

They were sitting thus, rather more peacefully than 
usual, at twelve o’clock, when there came a rush of 
feet on the staircase, inarticulate cries that froze the 


‘214 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


blood with their horrors, and P. tore into the back 
parlor, his eyes glaring, his frame quivering, and 
sprung round and round the room as if evading some- 
thing, crying out, “ Laocoon ! Laocoon ! The great 
serpent is running after me ! Hoy ! Ah-a-a ! How 
he tears ! he is fast ! he is on me !” He stooped as 
if to wrench away something that had seized his leg. 
Miss Gale saw that he was insane, and in his frenzied 
dreams saw the fierce serpents which had wrought 
horror on the plains of Troy. Marbles, or pictures 
of that scene, had always had a fascination for P., 
and now he felt their horror in himself. Again he 
yelled, u They are both after me ! on either side !” and 
struck out wildly with either arm; then, pale and 
trembling, crouched behind Miss Gale’s chair, clinging 
to her dress. 

We will say for P.’s innocent old aunt that her 
nephew’s agonies of alarm, and the gross impropriety 
of his taking refuge in her maiden presence, clad only 
in his night-dress, seemed equally shocking. She 
gasped out, “ Crazy ! undressed ! What can we do ? 
My dear boy ! calm yourself — and put on your panta- 
loons !” 

But P. had more snakes than pantaloons in his 
mind at that critical moment — the shadow of Miss 
Gale’s chair, and the grasp on her lress, gave him a 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


215 


fancied security. He lifted up her arm, and thrust 
his eyes and nose under her elbow, so that he could 
glare at the great crested snakes, mottled with blood, 
lying now in the far corner. 

“ Ring the bell, Miss Dean ; go for the servants ; I 
can’t move !” implored Miss Gale. “ Be quick, before 
he breaks out again !” 

“ If you fling that footstool true, you might kill 
it,” hissed P. “ Its head lies right on the big rose, 
under the gaslight. Throw it! throw it! before it 
comes after me again !” 

“I see it,” said Miss Gale. “It dare not move. 
I am not afraid of it. Do you know I can charm 
snakes? Be still, P. ;” and she crushed her elbow 
closer over his eyes, and began soothingly to pat the 
nervous hands that held her dress. The man-servant 
and the cook now came, in answer to Aunt Debby’s 
frantic calls. The old lady gasped out, “ Mr. Dean 
is taken crazy, and he is undressed !” — one calamity 
w r as as great as the other. 

The distracted P. was pleased to see, in the black 
man-servant, the devil come to carry him away ; and, 
in the three hundred pounds avoirdupois of the cook, 
an embodied nightmare. He ceased to fear the coiled 
serpents with heads on the ros: under the gaslight ; 
gave a howl of terror at the new apparitions, and 


216 


A MILLION TOO MUCH 


would nave sprung away, and made his capture diffi- 
cult, had not Miss Gale slipped her arm hack upon 
his neck, and drawn forward the hand she was pat- 
ting, so, not being a woman all nerves and no muscle, 
held him fast for a moment, until the servants could 
seize him. * 

Aunt Debby devoted herself to draping her nephew’s 
bare knees in a table-cover, while Miss Gale, at his 
head, put her hand over his eyes, and with firm, quick 
words of assurance and protection, quieted his fears 
of snakes and demons, big and little. 

The next three days were times of fearful torture 
to all the Dean household. The ravings of the 
maniac, the despair of his aunt, the sympathy, and 
severe duty of nursing, wore on every one. Twice 
P. had nearly succeeded in killing himself ; and one 
attack on Miss G^le would have resulted in her death, 
had it not been for her presence of mind. 

A week from the day on which he was seized with 
his delirium, P. had come to himself. He lay ex- 
hausted and emaciated on his bed, but was able to 
remember, to wish, to repent. Miss Gale sat beside 
him ; Aunt Debby lay asleep on the lounge. 

“P.,” said Miss Gale, “this sickness has worn on 
you fearfully.” 

“Yes; and on the poor old lady, too,” said P., 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


217 


looking over at his aunt, who, in the sickly light of a 
green damask curtain, looked ghastly as a corpse ex- 
humed days after burial. 

“ When, and how, will all this come to an end, P. ?” 

66 I don’t know — there’s so much temptation. If 
you were to shut me up in a room, and feed me 
through a hole in the door, I suppose I’d stay there — 
if the door was locked — and not get drunk.” 

Miss Gale caught at a new idea. She asked eagerly, 
“P., would you go to an inebriate asylum?” 

“ Yes ; I’d as soon go there as do anything else. I 
suppose you want to try everything in my behalf, and 
you see that legal measures have failed. It is rough 
work, trying to undo what years of folly and tempta- 
tion did. When do you want me to go ?” 

“ Day after to-morrow,” said Miss Gale, breath- 
lessly, amazed at the sudden ac^ptance of a scheme 
which had been only half formed in her own mind. 
It took shape on the instant, as many vague projects 
do, when the idea is put into words. 

“ You must go with me ; and you must settle up 
my business. You might as well begin now. Pull 
open that drawer, and you’ll find any amount of bills, 
and items, and bank-books, and everything. I cannot 
look after things.” 

Miss Gale pulled open the drawer, and the hetero- 


218 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


geneous mass of letters, bills, receipts, advertisements, 
play-bills, tickets, and billets-doux , gave a severe shock 
to her orderly soul. 

“ Can you make head or tail out of them ? I can’t/* 
said P. 

“I will ,” replied Miss Gale. “ Perhaps it will 
interest you if I begin now.” 

For want of better office arrangements, she took 
two toilette cushions, and set a knitting-needle up in 
each. “ The bills shall go on one, the receipts on 
another,” she explained. Next, she laid a box by 
P.’s hand. “ That is for letters which you want to 
keep.” 

Then a waste-basket was set before the bed. “ This 
is for what is to be thrown away. I will tell you what 
each is as I open it ; if I am throwing away what you 
want, speak.” » 

The work progressed rapidly. 

“ How nice it is,” said P., “ to be able to do things 
properly ! It is a year since I knew how to do any- 
thing with that drawer, more than to stuff something 
more into it ; and lately it got so full that I could not 
open it without something falling out.” 

“ I’m sorry to see so many unpaid bills from trades- 
people.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 219 

“ Yes ; they are trifles -which it is too much trouble 
to settle.’ * 

“ And yet it was not too much trouble to make 
them. These people may need their money, and your 
neglect is cruelty. Here is a note from Evelina Snell.” 

P. held out his hand for it. They had both forgot- 
ten Aunt Debby, who lay annihilated, with the excep* 
tion of her ghastly, worn face, under a down quilt. 

“ Miss Gale, I want to tell you something,” said P. 
Miss Gale leaned hack in her chair, and was all atten- 
tion. “ The other evening I went up to Snell’s, and, 
some way, I got engaged to Evelina. I like her ; but 
I’d never thought of marrying anybody as I know 
of— but there it is, you see. We’re engaged, and I 
mean to stick to it, if she does. I told her I’d be up 
next day, and bring her a ring ; and here it is a week, 
and she has not heard a word from me ; and if she 
told her folks maybe they’ll twit her about it — I do 
hate those Snells ! — anyway, she’ll feel badly, for I 
think she cares for me, poor girl !” 

“And you want me to go and see her, and tell 
her?” 

“ Just tell her the truth, where I’m going, and how 
I’ve been. Tell her I won’t hold her to the promise 
after that, unless she likes, you know ; but you buy 
a ring and take t; and if she chooses let her have 


220 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


it, so she’ll see all is fair on my part. Oh, Miss Gale, 
I did truly mean to do better ! When I found I was 
engaged, and knew the next thing would be to get 
married, I did mean to act like a man. I was coming 
home to tell you, and to ask you what I had better 
do ; for I ought to he able to take care of the poor 
girl, and make her happy ; and I wanted to show the 
Snells I knew what was what, confound them ! Then 
I met three fellows, who pulled me in the saloon with 
them ; they called for what they liked, and you see 
what has come of it.” 

Aunt Debby had drawn her face under the down 
quilt. She had woke up, and innocently shared her 
nephew’s confidences, and was now crying over his 
miserable, unsatisfactory love affair. 

Miss Gale finished the papers ; ascertained the 
amount of debts to be paid, and P. gave her a check 
for the sum, an amount that was appalling to Miss 
Gale. The next day, while Aunt Debby was packing 
P.’s trunk for his departure, Miss Gale set forth on her 
errand to Evelina. She armed herself with an humble 
note from P., and a diamond ring. Evelina was look- 
ing sad : she had heard of P.’s illness, but not of its 
nature, and she felt it was cruel that he had sent her 
no word. Miss Gale thought her a soft, shallow 
damsel, yet pitied her sincerely. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


221 


The ungarnished history narrated by Miss Gale, as 
a preface to P.’s note and ring, put matters before 
Evelina in a new light ; her common-place and chilly 
courtship took the golden halo of romance ; she could 
sacrifice herself for P. ; she could be like a maiden 
in a, story, and refuse to take back her troth from her 
self-sacrificing lover. She put on the ring with some 
spirit. <l I shall never desert P.,” she said. “ The 
world may turn against him, and be hard on him ; all 
his friends may forsake him, but I will not ; we may 
be poor and despised, but I will not be false.” 

“ That is very kind,” said Miss Gale ; “ but I hope 
P. will now reform, and not put your love to any such 
severe test. There will not be any very desperate 
poverty, for. Miss Dean will tie what she has up to 
his family. The matter for you to look to is that you 
would be very miserable with a drunken husband; 
and it would be very hard on all of us to have P. 
die from the effects of drinking. You must help him 
to reform. If I were you, I would go and see him, or 
write to him, and offer to sign the pledge, and urge 
him to do it also.” 

“ Go see him ! 0, that would be so queer !” cried 

Evelina. “ Pa would never let me do it; and who 
ever heard of a lady taking the pledge ? I should be 
laughed at every day.” 


222 A MILLION TOO MUCH. 

There was no striking anything new out of Evelina. 
So Miss Gale went home to tell P. that he might still 
consider himself engaged, and that he must now make 
himself fit to be the head of a household. 

Perhaps it was the exhaustion of illness that made 
P. so passive in Miss Gale’s hands ; or, perhaps he 
really did long to be free of his besetting sin, and 
was ready to try any means of reformation. 

Out of the bustle and temptation of daily life P. 
was lost for a time, shut into the safety of his asylum. 
Will years here kill the root of bitterness out of his 
heart ? Will abstinence, advice, healthful living, arm 
him against the demon of temptation, so that he shall 
be unmoved when next he meets it face to face ? 

“ What do you think ?” asked Dr. Roxwell of the 
superintendent. 

“ Sir,” replied the wise man, “ I could wish we had 
not inherited tendencies to combat ; I could wish we 
had a right education to assist us ; I could wish for 
an ardent seconding of all our treatment by the patient 
himself ; most of all, I wish that there were a strong 
foundation of grace in his soul whereon we might 
build.” 



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 


lUasonabk irinrijlts 






- 


- 















































* n.-l 


■ 

- 















CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 

Reasonable Principles applied. 


friends visited him in the Asylum. Dr. 
Roxwell came ; Aunt Debby came ; Miss Gale 
came. Evelina did not come, but she sent 
letters. Evelina was busy playing the role of 
disconsolate maiden, and in truth she performed the 
part very well. She talked of her poor P., and his 
misfortunes; his enemies; his sorrows. After all, one 
must commiserate the girl, for she led a hard life in 
the Snell family, who were not above jibes and taunts, 
and other shabby conduct. Evelina walked through 
life with drooping head, and her curls very long and 
lackadaisical ; she sighed, and by a judicious neglect 
of rouge grew pale. Doubtless she was as unhappy 
as she had capacity to be. 

Among the debts which Miss Gale had to settle was 
one to Mrs. Bently, which took her for the first time 
to the “ Happy Home Hotel.” Mrs. Bently, very 
red-faced and frowzy, with a grease-spotted and frayed 
poplin gown, and an abundance of tawdry ribbons, 
r (225) 


226 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


was busy behind her bar, dealing out drinks. She 
asked her visitor to step into the red-curtained sitting'- 
room until the customers had been supplied. 

The little room looked as if it had not been swept 
and dusted for a month ; grimy ornaments, which 
had in their better days graced the Dean mansion, 
were scattered here and there ; a cinder-choked fire 
struggled feebly in the open Franklin stove, and be- 
fore it with slipshod feet on the dirty hearth was Mrs. 
Jillet, leaning back in a red-cushioned rocking-chair, 
and sound asleep. The ex-housekeeper’s face was 
purple, bloated, and mottled ; her cap pushed up be- 
hind had settled its soiled border over her eyes ; her 
dress was unfastened, as if to give room to the huge, 
unhealthy neck, and Mrs. Jillet’s heavy breathing 
was ominous of apoplexy. Even Miss Gale could 
remember her as a robust, well-dressed, cleanly, busy 
woman, proud of her position, and careful to fill it 
well to outward appearance. 

Miss Gale sat on a ragged horsehair-covered sofa, 
and looking about, wondered how P. could have pre- 
vailed upon himself to haunt such a place in company 
with these odious women. Mrs. Bently came in, and 
seeing her crony asleep, punched her unceremoniously 
on the head, inquiring if it was proper to lie there 
snoring at company. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 227 

“ If it ain’t the governess !” cried Mrs. Jillet, arous- 
ing. “ Well, ma’am, here is an honor, though I’ve seen 
you in my room over at the Deans, before they had 
such a come down as obliged me to leave ’em. How’s 
Miss Dean ? She was always rather moping and 
weak-spirited ; she ought to have taken some brandy, 
or similar, to prop up her constitution. Mrs. Bently, 
couldn’t you bring in a little hot gin, or a drop of 
rum-and-water for a visitor ?” 

“ Ho, no, I don’t want it — I will not take it,” said 
Miss Gale. 

“I will, then,” said Mrs. Jillet, calmly; “I feel 
to need it.” 

The small servant boy, a scurrilous-looking little 
wretch, who, poor child, was working out an indebt- 
edness for the whiskey whereof his mother had drank 
herself to death, brought the rum and water, and 
Mrs. Bently made a fair mark on the wall with a 
burnt match which she picked from the floor; the 
mark was one of many like it, and Mrs. Jillet re- 
marked to the company generally, “ when I first came 
she kept my score private, now she marks it out on 
the wall, and charges high, too.” 

“I came from Mr. Dean to pay some money he 
owes you, and to say that you need no longer keep 
him a room.” 


228 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


As Miss Gale said this, and proffered the amount 
of the hill she held in her hand, Mrs. Bently de* 
manded tartly, — 

“ And what is up with Mr. Dean now f” 

“ Mr. Dean is going to reform ; he has entered 
himself at the Inebriate Asylum, and we expect him 
to come home well.” 

“ Reform ! Well, that needn’t cut him off from old 
friends ; we have been like own mothers to him, me 
and Mrs. Jillet.” 

“ Yes, yes, Mrs. Bently, dear,” said Mrs. Jillet, in 
her thick, apoplectic voice, “ many’s the time he’s set 
here by the fire sipping hot toddy — or similar — to cheer 
him up, he coming in late and wet ; and many’s the 
time he has laid out on that very sofa where Miss 
Gale’s a setting, raging with a headache, and you and 
me putting cold water on his head and giving him 
brandy and soda-water. You and me don’t get head- 
aches, Mrs. Bently, dear ; you and me are stronger- 
minded.” 

•Shocked at this picture of her poor hoy’s life, Miss 
Gale sprung up from the fatal sofa, saying, angrily, 
“ I don’t see how a woman can keep such a place as 
this!” 

“ And what sort of a place is it?” demanded Mrs. 
Bently. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


229 


“ A place to destroy men’s souls and bodies with 
drink.” 

“ I’ve got a license for doing it — my trade’s law- 
ful,” said Mrs. Bently, coolly. 

“ A license ! a license to commit sin ! God does 
not recognise a right in sin to exist, by giving sin a 
license.” 

“ Men do, and that suits me all the same. I deal 
with men, not with God,” said the blasphemous wretch. 

“ God will deal with you ; mark my words.” 

“ There’s your bill, receipted,” said Mrs. Bently, 
having with much reluctance and equal difficulty made 
an illegible scrawl which was supposed to be her name. 
“ You say Mr. Dean ain’t a-coming back ; mark my 
words, he is coming back.” 

“ Never — I’ll keep him away, however low he falls !” 
said Miss Gale, in great excitement. While Mrs. 
Bently replied, in equal excitement, “ I’ll have him 
back here, if I have him when he’s dead !” 

Mrs. Jillet had consumed her rum-and-water, and 
was again nodding in her chair. She roused up again 
when Miss Gale had departed, and Mrs. Bently sat 
down near the smouldering fire to talk over the “ im - 
pedence ” of the governess. “ She thinks she can do 
for young P. what she did for Mrs. Green, but I’ll let 


230 


A MILLION TOO MUCH , 


her know she can’t ; I’ll have a hand in that matter. 
How long before he’ll come home, think ?” 

Mrs. Jillet pulled her cap straight ; sat up in her 
chair ; drew her shoes on at the heel, and vainly 
essayed to button the neck of her faded chintz gown. 
She looked ruefully at her fat, grimy hands, and 
picked at the folds of her limp skirt. She was moved 
to these alterations and regrets as to her toilette 
because the thought of P. had recalled the days of 
her grandeur, when she ruled the millionaire’s house- 
hold ; when the servants feared her ; when money was 
plenty ; when her dress was fine ; when her room was 
comfortable, and she fed on the fat of the land ; when 
she was feathering and not destroying her nest. She 
spoke sententiously : — “ See how that house is going 
down. It was built up on whiskey, and by whiskey 
it shall fall. Ah ! Mrs. Bently, there were days when 
the cellar was full of the choicest — there were times 
when one could have white wine or red, without pay- 
ing for it — there were days when money was plenty, 
when me and the Deans rolled in gold. I’ve seen Mr. 
Dean, P.’s father, as shot hisself, poor soul, get that 
drunk he could not stir, and at his own table, too, 
and me going before with a wax-candle in my hand 
to turn his bed open, while the men brought him up 
in their arms ! For that matter, I’ve seen his wife — 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 231 

a handsome creature — so drunk she could not leave 
ner room. He got tipsy down-stairs, she up-stairs, 
that was all the difference with them. Well, what 
now ? They’re dead. Here’s the son — I don’t be- 
lieve he’s got forty thousand dollars left out of that 
million. There’s Miss Debby Dean, wilted away like 
an old faded flower in a bouquet, and no one*nigh her 
but that shabby governess, and only three servants in 
her house ! Well, it was whiskey did that — such 
money runs as fast it comes. Bless me, to think of 
it, Mrs. Bently ! death, and ruin, and poverty, and 
destruction to them as is weak enough to be overcome 
by it ! Strange that people can’t stand up agin a bit 
of hot toddy — or similar. Call that brat of a boy to 
make me a mug of flip, and make it strong.” 

Mrs. Bently called for the refection for her garru- 
lous crony, and, as soon as it was in her hand, 
deliberately set another match-mark on the wall. 

“ You’re mighty particular setting down the score,” 
said Mrs. Jillet, tartly. And her hostess responded : — 

“ I have to be ; I’ve my living to make, and you 
drink like a fish.” 

“I know one thing,” said Mrs. Jillet: “ I’ve a 
deal less mmey than I had when I came to live along 
with you. And I know another thing: my money 
gets taken out of my trunk.” 


232 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


“If that’s the hoy’s work, I’ll thrash Lim for it. 
Drink your flip, and don’t worrit. You: money ’ll 
hold out as long as you do.” 

This was truly a “Happy Home,” with the two 
women quarrelling and cheating, criminating and re- 
criminating each other; the forlorn pot-boy knocked 
and hanged about, overworked, half fed, kept in the 
whiskey business until, thank God, he was thoroughly 
sick of it ! the miserable topers, coming in to spend 
the last penny; the sailors and boatmen from the 
neighboring docks, beguiled to spend their hard-won 
earnings in deadly poison ; the dirt ; the riot ; the 
night turned to a sickly, brawling day; the day a 
grim, straggling fetid twilight ; — and the city au- 
thorities licensed the horrible den ! 

“ Have they any right to license such places and 
such traffic?” asked Miss Gale. 

“No,” said Doctor Roxwell. “To license sin, 
recognises in sin a right of existence. It has no such 
right. Sin is an interloper, a rebel, a banned alien ; 
and we are false to God, and to His great government, 
which beyond dispute sits high over the universe, 
and over the processes of every inferior court, when 
we in any way abet or suffer what is evil. To license 
evil, is to commit the foulest and most shameless evil 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


283 


of all. It is to sin and make others sin with you. 
For all these things God will bring us into judgment. ,, 

We wonder if Aunt Debby had prayed David’s 
prayer, “ 0, spare me, that I may recover strength, 
before I go hence and he no more !” After all the 
weary watching and anxiety of the past years — 
anxieties which indeed had had no ceasing since her 
brother the suicide had begun his course of dissipa- 
tion, — Aunt Debby felt at last that her care was for 
the present removed : P. was where he would be well 
f,aken care of, and she could fold her hands in peace, 
at least for a season. 

Aunt Debby’s charity had not been able to expand 
into an institution for genteel people of fallen for- 
tunes ; but now Miss Gale, knowing the healing power 
of benevolence, was able to lead out Miss Dean’s 
sympathies in good deeds to the suffering ; and it was 
pleasant to see the old lady at her work-table, making 
up caps or flannels for some unfortunate a few years 
her senior, or of calico and muslin preparing a ward- 
robe for some poor babe which, except for her care, 
might find nothing in a world into which it brought 
nothing. 

Mrs. Green was often made the almoner of these 
charities ; and Aunt Debby could never cease wonder- 
ing at the changes which she had known in that 


234 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


woman’s appearance and history. She would remark 
to Miss Gale, “ A fresh young woman, my dear, whom 
I was not afraid to let act as a mother to my hoy, the 
last of the Deans ; a virtuous, well-mannered person. 
Then, such a vile outcast that I was afraid to look at 
her or go near her — a filthy, stupid wretch, maudlin 
and ragged and a prisoner. Ah ! that was what intem- 
perance did for her. Now, a tidy mother of a family, 
quite respectable and civil ; a person I am not afraid 
to see in my house. That is what temperance has 
done for her.” 

As for Teddy, Aunt Debby was pleased to forget 
what she considered the vast social difference between 
them, and was ready to make him welcome when he 
came to call and see if he could render the family any 
little service in P.’s absence. Besides her benevolence 
Aunt Debby had her rancors ; and the chief portica 
of her wrath was expended on Mrs. Jillet and Mrs. 
Bently, whom she considered the chief instruments 
of her nephew’s misfortunes. 

Meanwhile, at the asylum, P. was trying that nine 
pounds of cure which is less valuable than an ounce 
of prevention. 

“ How is he getting on?” Dr. Boxwell asked of 
the superintendent. 

“He is one of our most hopeless cases,” replied 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


235 


that responsible person, despairingly. “Not that he 
drinks — for he has no chance — but there seems abso- 
lutely nothing to build a cure on ; no self-restraint, 
no knowledge, no principles. Some one has been 
terribly to blame about that young man. He would 
have had a generous heart, if he had had a particle 
of opportunity. He has a fine physical organization, 
and naturally a good mind. How can I deal with 
him ? I confess, he seems one of the incurables.” 

“ Apply reasonable principles,” suggested the doc- 
tor, vaguely. 

“ Reasonable principles are a mere rope of sand to 
him.” 

Dr. Roxwell walked off to where P. lay stretched 
on a bench in an arbor, looking up into the green 
vines that swung over his head. 

“ I hope you’re enjoying yourself, Dean.” 

“ I never enjoy myself, and never did,” said P. 

“Well, when you get out all right, then enjoyment 
may begin — better late than never.” 

“ All right ! Doctor, can you expect a fellow like 
me t: be all right — which means sober — in a city 
which has more grog-shops in proportion to its in- 
habitants than any other town or city in the world ?” 

“ That’s a very bad notoriety. All of us, as citi- 


23G 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


zens, ought to be ashamed of it, and do our best to 
bring about a better state of things.” 

“ You’ll never bring it about in my day,” said P. 
“ It is a good thing, doctor, that you never married, so 
that you have no sons to be sacrificed. I wonder if 
you know, if the good parents, the excellent Chris- 
tians of that city know what is going on about them. 
Boys of fifteen and sixteen swarming into billiard- 
saloons, and tippling at liquor-stores. There’s no 
harm in the skilful game of billiards, and nothing 
illegal in the whiskey traffic ; but they’re sending us 
fellows to perdition by the score.” 

“I thought you didn’t believe in a hell, P. !” said 
the doctor. 

“ One must believe in what he feels begun within 
him. I have had delirium tremens, doctor, and then 
I understood what I used to doubt. While you good 
people lie in bed asleep, we young chaps drift here 
and there, now a dance-house, and now a gambling- 
house open to us — six thousand places where liquor 
is sold, enticing us on every hand — we are lost before 
you kndw it, before we realize it ourselves, there are 
so many chances of destruction on every side. Aunt 
Debby used to get me to read on Sundays about a 
queer old chap called Christian, who had a hump of 
some kind on his back, and was on a journey. I 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


237 


never got through with it; hut one scene used to 
haunt me, it seemed so like the streets of that famous 
city of ours, at night. He got into a Valley of the 
Shadow of Death. I learned the description once, 
and spouted it at school for an oration. I always 
had a liking for the horrible ; and old Easy blew me 
up about it, and said such exciting things were unfit 
for me. I wrote it once on the leaves of my pocket- 
book. Here the thing is : — 

“‘We saw there also the hobgoblins, satyrs, and 
dragons of the pit : we heard also in that valley a 
continual howling and yelling, as of a people under 
unutterable misery, who there sat bound in affliction 
and iron ; and over that valley hung the discouraging 
clouds of confusion ; Death also does always spread 
his wings over it. In a word, it is every whit dread- 
ful, being utterly without order. There was on the 
right hand a very deep ditch : that ditch is it into 
which the blind have led the blind in all ages, and 
have both miserably perished.’ (That is the whiskey- 
seller and the whiskey-drinker, doctor). 4 Again, 
behold ! on the left hand there was a very dangerous 
quag, into which, if even a good man falls, he finds 
no bottom for his foot to stand on.’ 

44 That’s it ; that’s just the way we fellows are 
beset, sir — a ditch on one hand, a quag on the other, 


238 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


the devil close behind, and death brooding over all ! 
and — nobody seems to care !” 

“ 6 Thus he went on, and I heard him sigh bit- 
terly,’ ” quoted the doctor. “Very many do care, 
and are striving to remove temptation, to strengthen 
you against it also ; but it takes a long while for a 
good cause to gain the mastery, and there have been 
many hindrances. That burdened Pilgrim, who 
travelled through the valley you speak of, my dear 
fellow, had a weapon called All-Prayer ; and, when 
he ‘walked in the strength of his God,’ he walked 
safely, and the fiends plagued him no more.” 

“ I don’t know anything about that,” said P. “ If 
ever there was any religious instinct in me, it has 
been all burned out by whiskey-drinking.” 

“ See here!” said the doctor; “you are in the dumps 
to-day. You are the victim of physical depression, 
occasioned by the lack of an accustomed stimulant ; 
and the depression of the body reacts on the mind. 
Let us talk of something more cheerful. You are 
engaged to be married, my boy.” 

“Yes,” said P., indifferently. 

“ Then you must rouse up, and do great things for 
the girl you love.” 

“ Evelina is not the sort of girl one is roused to do 
great things for, doctor. If a girl had a high pur- 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


239 


pose, an earnest way of living and speaking, like Miss 
Gale for instance, it seems as if she might inspire even 
a fellow like me to try and be worthy of her. I don’t 
find fault with Evelina. She’s as good as the rest 
of the girls I’ve known, and quite good enough for 
me. None of these girls I’ve seen can be like those 
of old times, for whose sake the knights errant did 
such grand deeds.” 

“ There are grander deeds done now-a-days, and 
grander women who inspire them,” said the doctor, 
smiling. 

“I wish I could have seen some of them,” said P. 
“ But of course, doctor, I mean to marry Evelina, for 
I said I would. I don’t look forward to any very 
charming times. I will be drinking, and seeing snakes 
maybe ; and Evelina will be doing her hair in curl- 
papers, and crying.” 

“ If you have made up your mind to that life, I 
don’t see what use it is for you to be here, Dean.” 

“ No more do I ; and when the thirst is strong in 
me some day, I’ll break jail and away.” 

“ See here, my boy ; is not the saving of your soul 
worth striving for ? Can you not see your duty to 
yourself and to the world, and stand up to it like a 
man ? When you know that only one evil habit 
stands between you and all reasonable mjoyments, 


240 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 




can you not resolve to be free of that habit ? Can 
you deliberately dare all the horrors of disease and 
insanity which drinking will bring upon you ? 

“ Doctor* my parents gave me love of drink for an 
inheritance; my nurses poisoned me; my aunt and 
my teachers extravagantly indulged me ; society 
tempted me in every form ; the law licensed my 
enemies to destroy me. Men and women ; parents 
an4 acquaintances ; civil law and the avarice of 
strangers, have leagued with the devil against me; 
and do you expect me to withstand all this ? I’m a 
doomed man.” 

“No man can be doomed against his will,” said the 
doctor. 

“Will! My will is demoralized,” said P., lan- 
guidly. 



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 

jsflrictg nn&trs a ftrbiti. 


Gold, still gold ; it haunted him yet. 
At the Golden Lion the inquest met; 
Its fireman a carver and gilder.” 










CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 


Society renders a Verdict. 

NE year passed while our young man was 
in the asylum. Nothing hut the most earn- 
est endeavors of his friends, the persuasion 
of their constant visits, and the frantic 
representations of Aunt Debby, would have detained 
there so long a patient, who, from his first entrance, 
had been considered nearly hopeless. P. had long 
ago given up all thought or wish of reformation, and 
only desired to return to his old companions, and the 
riotous indulgence of his city life. Whenever he 
hinted or plainly expressed such wish, visits, letters, 
entreaties, compelled him to remain at his retreat. 
To get home without this preliminary excitement, he 
made his escape from the asylum on the twenty-fifth 
of January, 1869, and on the following day presented 
himself at his own house, to the distress of his aunt, 
while Miss Gale was not at all surprised, having been 
for some time convinced that it was thus that he 
would return. 



(243) 


244 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


These two women made the most pitiful efforts to 
welcome their wanderer, to conceal their fears, to 
show confidence in him ; and, while they pretended 
to trust, sought really to watch and to control. We 
doubt not that P. saw through the poor pretences 
of his aged aunt, and they should have put him to 
shame ; but shame was dead. 

The affection of Evelina Snell could not have been 
expected to survive a year of absence. Of late her 
letters had been few and short ; but the Snells were 
a large family of daughters, and lovers had not been 
so plentiful that Evelina had been tempted actually 
to transfer her allegiance ; so P. still considered him- 
self an engaged man. The parental Snell took 
occasion to ask P. what were his intentions, and how 
soon he proposed to marry. P. politely replied that 
he should be only too happy, whenever it suited his 
Evelina. 

“ I must take opportunity to inquire into your 
affairs,” said Mr. Snell, pompously. His bloated 
purple face, and arrogant voice, vexed P., who saw 
in him a former tempter, and, we might say, robber ; 
and he tartly made answer that he had very small 
affairs to look into ; his guardians and executors, and 
the public generally, had stolen from him to such an 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


245 


extent that he had no property left worth inquiring 
after. 

“ How can you expect to marry my daughter V * 
demanded the irate Snell. 

“ That is for her to say,” replied P. “ I have you, 
for one, to thank for what I am.” 

Father Snell informed his family that he was con- 
vinced that “ P. had gone to the dogs, was unworthy 
the Snell countenance, and that Evelina could doubt- 
less make a much better match.” Three days before, 
Evelina would have scouted this idea; but she had 
lately danced with a man with a mustache, who said 
he was an Italian count ; and but a few hours before 
her father declared P.’s canine whereabouts, Evelina 
had received a bouquet and a poetical note from the 
“ count ;” she therefore simply sulked at her parent’s 
remarks, and held her decision in abeyance. 

Restraint had been succeeded by excess. Solomon 
perceived that the washed sow straightway bolted oft 
to the mire, there to wallow with increased satisfac- 
tion ; and so P., after the enforced abstinence of his 
asylum, returned with avidity to “ brandy, whiskey, 
gin — an’ similar,” as Mrs. Jillet informed Mrs. Bently 
with much secret pleasure. 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Bently, with a smack of triumph 
in her voice. “That upstart of a governess thought 


246 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


she could keep him all his life in leading-strings, and 
even packed him off to an inebriate asylum ! I wonder 
does she want to marry him, or want his money ?” 

“ Pooh ! no, Mrs. Bently, dear. She’s old enough 
to be his mother ; and as to the money, that’s gone to 
the winds : he’s used up about all he has, I’m think- 
ing! He’s like me!” cried Mrs. Jillet, finishing her 
toddy, and getting angry, as often happened, at “ Mrs. 
Bently, dear.” “Like me! My score’s longer than my 
- purse has got to be. I had a nice mint of money for a 
lone woman when I came here, but it’s gone fast, and 
I ain’t spent it. I’m robbed — robbed — robbed, I tell 
you, and I’ll set the police after you, Mrs. Bently, 
that I will. You vile hussy, to rob an old friend, 
and she in poor health, and all alone in the world !” 
And Mrs. Jillet fell a sobbing into the folds of her 
dirty apron, while Mrs. Bently, with words wonder- 
fully like swearing, went out and gave short measure 
to her customers, and slapped her forlorn Gany- 
mede, dismal bearer of pewter cups to these infernal 
gods. 

Into such a reeking Gehenna, our P., the child of 
luxury, spoiled Heir of a Million, staggered often; 
to lie on the foul bed, or the ragged haircloth-covered 
sofa, stupidly drunk, or maybe racked with pain, or 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 247 

seeing in these greasy red-faced harridans the demons 
of his delirious agonies. 

Nor here alone did delirium come upon him. At 
his own house he sprang screaming from the table, 
and seized the carving-knife to put an end to himself. 
Miss Gale wrenched the weapon from him, and he 
then flashed up-stairs, going on all-fours, and howling 
like a hyena ; after him went Miss Gale, at a frantic 
pace ; by her side ran the black man-servant, with 
his eyes starting from his head, and sweat rolling 
down his face; the fat cook, with a toasting-fork, 
whereof the prongs were ornamented with half-cooked 
cheese, lumbered breathlessly to the rescue; the house- 
maid stumbled on in haste, making ineffectual efforts 
to hold up her dress from under her feet, and Aunt 
Debby, white and trembling, weeping and moaning, 
feebly brought up the rear of this domestic rout. 

Such a scene was succeeded by days of watching 
by P.’s sick-bed, when his life was despaired of, and 
those who loved him best having become hopeless of 
his repentance, even wished that he might die without 
further sin 01 pain. 

Miss Gale had been a most devoted friend of her 
former pupil. She had watched his wayward track 
these several years, toiling for his welfare like a sister ; 
but now, if it had not been for Aunt Debby, she 


248 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


would have returned to her own friends, and left him 
to “ gang his lane.” 

Meanwhile P. had neglected Evelina, and tho 
“ Count” with the moustache had been attentive, be 
rolled up his eyes, and talked of the “ golden-haired 
beauty of the North;” he had sighed in a manner 
that Evelina considered most romantic. She assured 
her most intimate friend that if she broke her en- 
gagement with P., P. would kill himself ; if she was 
true to P. the “ Count” would be heartbroken. 

At such a juncture of affairs, P. by no means bet- 
tered his prospects by appearing before Evelina in a 
state of intoxication ; he came for an evening call, 
and though not ungraceful naturally, he stepped 
through the trailing folds of her rose-colored muslin 
at his very entrance, and while Evelina, burning with 
wrath and mortification, seated herself on a sofa and 
strove to conceal the rent, he placed himself at her 
side, and fell heavily against her shoulder, remark- 
ing, “ You look deuced pretty to-day, Evelina — wish 
I’d brought you a present.” 

“ I wish you’d behave !” cried the poor girl, pas- 
sionately. “You are drunk, you know you are, and 
how dare you come here and act so ? I never want to 
see you again.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


249 


“ That’s a good one, when we’re engaged !” jeered P. 

“ I’ll not be engaged to you another day l” cried 
Evelina, much excited, snatching off the ring Miss 
Gale had brought her, and thrusting it at him. “ You 
are a cruel, wicked wretch, and if you cared one bit 
for me, you’d have done better long ago.” 

P. was too little master of his own thoughts or acts 
than to understand what he did, or his Evelina said. 
He had no consciousness of how he left the house, or 
how or when he got home — but he found himself lying 
in his own bed towards noon next day, and was con- 
scious that he had quarrelled with Miss Snell. His 
coat and vest were hanging from the seat of a chair, 
his pocket-book, knife, and a ring that looked strangely 
like the one Evelina had worn, lay on the floor as they 
had slipped from his pocket. 

“I wonder if I’m out of that noose?” said P. to 
himself, regarding the ring. Then better thoughts 
came to him. “ I wonder if I behaved badly, and if 
I’ve made the poor girl feel unhappy ? Confound it 
all, I hope not ! What luck I have ! just a curse to 
myself and everybody. Would it have been better 
to marry and settle down ? could I have settled down, 
and been sober, and gone into business, if I \ad 
married? maybe not. The world is very hard on 
me !” 


250 


A AIL LION TOO MUCH. 


He dressed and rung for some breakfast to be sent 
up to him. When the man brought in the tray, two 
notes lay beside the coffee cup. When alone, tie 
opened them — one was from Evelina, formally break- 
ing off their engagement, on account of his ill con- 
duct. Had this been alone, P. might have been 
penitent, and though he would not have sought to 
renew the broken bonds, he would have begged pardon 
for past offences; but the excellent father of Evelina 
must needs send P. a proud, taunting epistle, forbid- 
ding him the house, reflecting on his ruined fortunes 
and dishonored name, and stating that he had other 
and better prospects for his daughter than marriage 
with a penniless drunkard. 

Erom another man, P. might have borne this as 
deserved ; but not from Snell, who had made him 
drunk at his table, himself an habitual tippler, and 
who had lived like a parasite on P. in his more 
palmy days, draining him of a part of his million. 

P. was in a paroxysm of fury ; he was in a state 
of mind where he could have killed Snell ; but not 
seeing him, his rage rebounded upon himself, and he 
rushed off to a saloon where bad whiskey and bad 
company alike abounded. Here, through the warm 
summer afternoon, he drank and played cards, in the 
fashion of many, who, angry at being condemned as 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 251 

unworthy, proceed at once to show the condemnation 
just. 

Twelve, one, two ; the night was wearing away, 
and still Aunt Debby waited for her hoy to come. 
She feared evil for him, for already Miss Gale had 
surmised that the engagement with Evelina was broken. 
Miss Gale had gone to P.’s room soon after his 
departure, and had found on the table a little heap of 
fragments of written note-paper, and beside them the 
well-known ring which she had taken to Evelina. 
She told Miss Debby of this in the evening, and 
when the gentle old aunt began to lament that every 
one was unjust and unkind, and to throw a halo of 
romance over her nephew’s lawless life, by crying out 
that his affections were trifled with, and that his heart 
was broken, Miss Gale did not contradict the asser- 
tion, for she knew it is easier to believe our dear ones 
sinned against than sinning. 

“We must go out of town for the hot weather; 
and now that Miss Snell has treated him badly, our 
boy will be willing to go ■with us — indeed, I could not 
go and leave him; and we will take him to the moun- 
tains and make him happy. After all,” added Aunt 
Debby, piously, “this affliction may be a means of 
good to him, and sorrow may reform him.” 

Then, as it was very late, the two went to their 


252 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


rooms, and perhaps Miss Gale fell asleep ; but Aunt 
Debby left the gas burning and sat up in bed in night- 
gown and cap, reading her Bible and waiting for P. 
She may have had some revelation of the possibilities 
and opportunities which she had neglected — some 
vision of shining heights where she might have walked 
even in this present life, as she read and waited, for 
the leaves of the Book were very wet with her last 
tears. 

Three o’clock. The alabaster clock in the back 
parlor, the rosewood clock in the dining-room, the 
mahogany clock in the hall, the bronze clock in Aunt 
Debby ’s room, and the gilt clock in P.’s room, chimed 
out the hour, one after the other. P.’s clock lagged, 
like its master ; and now, as the key turned in the 
latch, and P. came in, Aunt Debby rose from her 
bed, and put her head out from her door : — 

“ I’m glad you are in safe, my dear boy !” 

“ Plague on it ! why will you always wait up for a 
fellow ! Of course I’ll get in safe ; and if I don’t, it 
would be no matter.” 

Thus spoke the young man on whom the Snell 
family had passed their verdict — a verdict in which 
we must now acquiesce. 

Yet a little later, and Aunt Debby knocked at her 
nephew’s door, and then went in. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 253 

A. dim, gray twilight filled the room, and P. was in 
bed. 

“ I could not go to sleep when your last word was 
cross, my poor dear boy,” said the old lady, tremu- 
lously. “ I must give you a chance to speak like 
yourself.” She sat down by his bed, and smoothed 
his hot forehead with her wrinkled, soft hand. “ My 
heart aches for you, my dear child ; I know you are 
unhappy. Has Evelina ” 

u I’m done with her, and glad o*t it,” growled P. 

“ My dear ! Remember, P., that there is always 
one who loves you better than life, and will always 
love and pray for you. Oh, my child, I’m afraid I 
have done very wrong by you, though I meant well, 
and sinned only through ignorance. And yet we 
may be to blame for our ignorance. If my folly has 
brought you to these sins and sorrows, Oh, my boy, 
forgive me ! forgive me !” 

“ There ! there ! Aunt Debby. You have always 
done well enough — better than I deserve ; what wrong 
there is, is my part. Go to bed, Aunt Debby ; you’ll 
get cold and tired out.” 

Five o’clock. All the clocks in the house had told 
the time to all the others. Miss Gale is running into 
P ’s room without the ceremony of a knock — “ P , 
wake up ! wake up !” 


254 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Now she shakes him by the shoulder, and cannot 
break the deep sleep of intoxication. “Wake up! 
Oh, wake up ! Aunt Debby is dying ! Come ! She 
asks for you !” This shouted in the sleeper’s ear ; 
but he only turned heavily on his pillow with a mut- 
tered curse, swung his arm in*' the air and let it 
fall — he could not be aroused. 

The man-servant had gone for the doctor and a 
friend ; the cook, in a wide-bordered cap, stood, 
sleepily amazed, at the bed’s foot; the housemaid, 
dropped in a little heap on the floor, cried some sin- 
cere tears, for she really loved Aunt Debby. Miss 
Gale stood by the pillows which bolstered up her 
friend, and wiped her damp face, fanning her gently 
to assist the laboring breath. For a moment or two 
Miss Dean seemed to desire her nephew’s presence, 
and looked wistfully about for him. Then she merci- 
fully lost the knowledge of his absence. She leaned 
back more restfully, and drew a deep breath or two. 
Then the constant love and compassion she had shown 
to her nephew she whispered faintly — “ Good-night, 
and God bless you, my dear boy !” her head dropped 
forward, the doctor came in, and the servants opened 
the shutters to the red light of morning. Aunt 
Debby had gone where the afflicted are comforted, 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


255 


the feeble are strengthened, and “ God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes !” 

P. rang his bell twice next morning between ten 
and eleven. After a little delay, the housemaid 
answered it, red-eyed and hesitating. 

“ Where’s that man, that I must keep ringing in 
this way, and he does not come?” growled P., sick 
and cross. 

“ If you please, sir, he has gone to the undertaker’s 
with a message. Your aunt died early this morning, 
Mr. Dean.” 

“ And why was I not called ?” demanded P., lift- 
ing his head. 

“ Miss Gale couldn’t waken you, sir ; she came 
when your aunt asked for you, but you were too 
heavy asleep.” 

“ There ; go down stairs, and let me alone.” 

Presently Miss Gale came to the" room. “ P . the 
last words she said were to you, ‘God bless you!’ 
Oh, P., think of that blessing, and try and get it !” 

P. sobbed, “ I’m not worthy of a blessing ! Poor 
dear old Aunt Debby, she’s gone ! her troubles are 
ended ! I wish mine were !” 

“ They would be ended by seeking God, my friend, 
— in no other way. To those who have not sought 
Him, the end of life is but the beginning of sorrows.” 


256 


A MILLION TOO MUCH . 


Aunt Debby was buried. P. stayed quietly in tbe 
house, with Miss Gale, until after the funeral. In 
the evening after they returned from the cemetery, 
Dr. Roxwell and Aunt Debby’s lawyer came with the 
good woman’s will. Now that she was gone, the 
house, and all that it contained, came, by the terms 
of his grandfather’s will, into P.’s hands uncondition- 
ally ; so long as Miss Dean had lived nothing could 
be sold, and she had her right there. Aunt Debby’s 
own little fortune had been reduced several times by 
paying P.’s debts ; she left him the remainder in such 
shape that he could have only the income unless he 
entirely reformed, and in that case he could have the 
capital to invest in business. 

“My money is all gone,” said P., gruffly. “I 
don’t see why she could not give me hers out and 
out.” 

“Because,” said Dr. Roxwell, severely, “she knew 
that it would be all gone, too, in a short time, and she 
has arranged for you to have a little income to save 
you from absolute poverty.” 

The following morning, at breakfast, P. asked Miss 
Gale what they were to do now. 

“I shall go to my uncle,” said Miss Gale. “And 
if you will go too, and reform, you will find plenty 
to help you, and happiness in store for you.” 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


257 


“ I don’t intend to reform ; I’ve tried a dozen times 
and have failed. There is nothing to run this estab- 
lishment on now, at least I can’t make the income do 
it, and I am not domestic. I shall sell out. Aunt 
Debby left you a number of mementoes, and I shall 
add some more which I don’t like to see sold. I wish 
you’d send them off to your uncle’s, pay and dismiss 
the servants, and get things in order for me — you 
have always been so kind.” 

After that, P. was seldom sober enough to look 
after anything : some nights he came home, others 
he came not. Miss Gale rendered her verdict to Dr. 
Roxwell : “ The poor boy is an utterly abandoned 
and hopeless fellow. I never saw such greedy run- 
ning after sin.” 

Miss Gale bade her old pupil good-bye with an 
aching heart. He was too drunk to understand what 
she said to him. Next day, the red flag was flying 
from doors and windows of the Dean mansion ; and 
house and furniture, family plate and family pictures, 
hooks and mementoes, long ago Christmas and birth- 
day gifts, went under the auctioneer’s hammer. 

The sum obtained by this sale was put in P.’s 
hands, and he began a reckless course of extrava- 
gance that surpassed all his former proceedings. He 
hired two men-servants, bought a carriage and pair 


258 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


of horses, went to a fashionable hotel, and for three 
months was the scandal of his native city. “ Society,” 
that potent, variable, Proteus-shaped divinity, pro- 
nounced an irrevocable judgment on young P. Dean. 
P. was called to the bar of Society, and declared a 
debased, ungentlemanly vagabond, unfit for genteel 
notice. 

P. was ostracised by Society, by Pincham, Snell, 
and even by Binkle, and scores of other good people ; 
but, driven from this reputable and accomplished 
circle, Mrs. Bently and Mrs. Jillet would yet receive 
him with open arms. 



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 


Jin!> sc foots tjjt Corotr. 


“ And the jury debated from twelve to three 
What the verdict ought to be, 

And they brought it in as a fdc Je m.** 






























CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 


And so does the Coroner. 


AMBLING and drinking made short work 
fevr w jth the funds P. had obtained by the sale 
of his house and furniture. There came a 
day when coachman and valet left P. be- 
cause their wages were not paid. The carriage and 
horses were sold on account of the bill for keep at 
the livery-stable ; the coachman, by a well-timed suit, 
getting part of the price for the money due him, the 
other servant having paid himself by a watch, a ring, 
and a dressing-case. Some little time after this P. 
left the fashionable hotel, absolutely ejected, because 
of his inability to settle for his board ; and his trunks 
being detained for debt, this heir of a great fortune, 
who had lived in luxury, went down to Mrs. Bently’s 
“ Happy Home Hotel,” on Water street, with only a 
portmanteau of clothing, a few dollars in his pocket, 
and no trinket of value left him except the emerald 
ring on his finger. 


(261) 


262 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


The Happy Home was the chosen resort of vermin 
innumerable and unmentionable ; grimy windows shut 
out the view of the foul street, with ragged urchins 
playing in the oozing slime of the sewers. From the 
dark kitchen came up a stench of onions, tobacco, 
gin, and stale mutton ; through all the dingy rooms 
rang the voices of Mrs. Bently and Mrs. Jillet, quar- 
relling over scores and money, and the short yelps of 
a starved dog, and the impish little slave, whose mo- 
ther had died of Mrs. Bently’s whiskey. 

Mrs. Bently’s discerning eye i ead the history of 
her dear Mr. Bean’s misadventures, and compre- 
hended the low ebb of his fortunes. 

“ I’ve been a losing money, Mr. Dean, sir,” she 
said, on the second day of his stay, “ and I’ve made 
new rules. Just for business sake, would you pay me 
an advance, sir?” 

P. paid her ten dollars. 

“I’ll not trust him, he’s run out,” aid Mrs. Bently 
to Mrs. Jillet ; “ I’ll keep paid ahead, and when he’s 
no more money out he goes, and so does some other 
people as sets theirselves up for big folks.” 

“ Be careful, Master Dean, dear, she’s a thief ; she’s 
been robbing of me ; keep your portmanteau locked 
up, and look out for your pocket-book, or let me keep 
it for ycu,” said Mrs. Jillet, in confidence to P. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


263 


“There’s nothing in it to tempt either of you,” 
said P., with a shrill, bitter laugh. 

Who would now recognise P., in clothes frayed and 
made shabby by rows in low doggeries, and nights spent 
in station-houses, his patent-leather boots cracked and 
w r orn, his hat battered and water-stained, his shirt- 
bosom soiled and rumpled? Was this the fashionable 
young gentleman who had made New Year’s calls, 
and gone to the parties of the wealthiest in the city, 
whom mothers and daughters had courted and petted, 
and hoped to win ? 

The few possessions in the portmanteau mysteri- 
ously disappeared. Mrs. Jillet and Mrs. Bently may 
have wanted handkerchiefs and socks. When Mrs. 
Bently boldly dunned for another advance of board, 
P. went to the pawnbroker’s, to sell the emerald ring. 
That brought him twenty-five dollars, and Mrs. Bently 
got fifteen, to stop her mouth for three weeks to come. 

Two days after the three weeks were ended, Mrs. 
Bently, Mrs. Jillet, and P. sat about a little table 
drinking and playing cards. It would have been hard 
to tell which was the most fearsome sight — these two 
hideous old women, or the wrecked and wretched 
young man who was their victim. 

“ Bring us some rum and water, some fiip- -or simi- 
lar — I’m thirsty,” said Mrs. Jillet. 


264 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


The shocking little boy, an animated scarecrow, 
brought the refection ; all drank, and Mrs. Bently 
won P.’s money. 

“You owe me a quarter.” 

“ Can’t pay it — I’m dead broke,” said P., surlily. 

“Then, where is your board coming from?” de- 
manded Mrs. Bently. 

“ From nowhere — all’s up with me,” said P. 

“ You shall pay it. It is two days overdue, you 
villain. And you’ve a debt for two dollars at the bar, 
and not a rag of baggage worth seizing, you thief. 
To come here trying to cheat a lone woman as always 
treated you like a mother !” shrieked the drunken 
landlady. 

“ You’ve shared plenty of my money, you vile Jew!” 
said P., enraged. “I leave it to Mrs. Jillet, if you 
have not had round hundreds from me, and robbed 
me most scandalously.” 

“I’ll call the police to you!” yelled Mrs. Bently. 
“ If you can’t pay up, you can go. Out with you, or 
I’ll put you out !” 

“ Maybe he’ll have some more money in a day or 
two,” said Mrs. Jillet, longing to oppose Mrs. Bently, 
whom she both feared and hated. 

“Not to-norrow, nor any other lay,” said P., dog- 
gedly. 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


265 


The wind howled through the streets ; the sleet 
rattled against the windows ; it was an evening early 
in the November of 1870. A storm had raged for 
two days, and it was bitterly cold. The hour ap- 
proached midnight ; without all was darkness, except 
for the flaring of the street-lamps; the few forlorn 
wayfarers who yet wandered in the streets shivered 
and hid their chill hands in their clothing, while they 
slipped and stumbled on the icy pavement. The* 
“ rum and similar” had been drunk from the dirty 
glasses on Mrs. Bently’s table ; the poor old lamp 
burnt low ; the greasy cards lay scattered on the floor. 
P., sitting there, gaunt, haggard, with a deathly white- 
ness settled on his pinched face, his thin worn clothes 
buttoned closely about his wasted frame, and his feet 
showing through the broken leather of his boots, 
might have been a sight to move any compassion but 
Mrs. Bently’s. Still she taunted him, and threat- 
ened — still forbade him to go to his room until he 
made her another payment ; still roughly bade him 
go out from her doors, and walk in the streets, like 
the vagabond he was. 

And this woman had held him in her arms as a 
babe ; had lived under his roof ; could remember all 
the splendor of his early surroundings ; had herself 


266 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


tempted him, and dragged him down to this dire ruin 
on this bleak November night. 

There was no fire now in the rusty, broken stove. 
Mrs. Jillet wrapped her miserable shawl about her, 
and staggered off to her bed. The forlorn servant- 
boy was forgetting his troubles as he fell asleep on a 
pile of rags under the counter of the bar, sharing his 
bed with the hungry cur. Mrs. Bently shook her fist 
in P.’s face ! 

“ Begone ! I tell you. I’ll harbor you no longer 
under my roof, you poverty-struck, lean-faced 
scamp !” 

P. rose, and with unsteady step passed out into the 
night. Up and down the streets he wandered, walk- 
ing mechanically to keep from freezing, the liquor 
dizzying his brain at first, so that he could realize 
nothing. As the cold air sobered him more and more, 
the apprehension of his degraded and outcast lot 
came to him; all hope was dead; life was a burden 
and a curse ; he had sunk now so low that there was 
no eye to pity and no hand to save ; to live was to be 
cold, sick, starved, weary, and despised. Where 
should he look for safety ? Even then Dr. Roxwcll 
would have welcomed and rescued him, but P. had 
sedulously kept out of his sight these several months. 
Miss Gale, with love and pity like a sister’s, woulJ 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


267 

Have received this prodigal, have fed and clothed him, 
and helped him to help himself. But to neither of 
these did the unfortunate turn in the hour of his 
extremity. 

On this very night Evelina had married her bogus 
Count with the mustache, and all the Snell family, 
thoroughly deceived, had celebrated the wedding, and 
the house was now strown with fading flowers and 
relics of the marriage feast ; and forgotten gaslights 
were burning dimly in the gray light of the breaking 
day. In all the festive gathering, no gay heart had 
thought of him, once rich and jolly, first at the dance 
and in the wine-room. He had passed out of all their 
careless lives and from their fickle hearts, and stand- 
ing now in the narrow, dismal street, the sleet freezing 
to his shabby garments and to his shaggy hair, P. 
realized that he had outlived his fortunes, and debated 
whether he should now brave the misery of life or the 
misery of death. He knew well what was the grow- 
ing pain of living ; he cared little what might come 
for him when life was done. He would give himself 
no time for thought ; he could at least escape cold, 
scorn, famine, the pain that preyed upon him day 
after day. Then he turned from the circle of light 
in which he had stood by the lamp-pc3t, and ran as 
quickly as his weak, trembling, chilled feet could take 


268 


A MILLION TCO MUCH. 


him, down by the “ Happy Home Hotel,” around the 
corner by the grogger y, by the great warehouse, where 
once cargoes of rum from the West Indies had been 
landed for his grandfather, along past the forsaken 
stall where in daylight some imp of darkness dealt 
out “ Tom and Jerry” to sailors ; on, on, along the 
wharf, out on the pier, where the black water slips up 
and down ; one plunge — and he is done with the 
tempters and temptations and the miseries that have 
dogged him and preyed upon him here. 

Did he wildly repent ? Did he struggle to the sur- 
face of the icy water, and cry out in his despair, and 
strike out feebly with unnerved arm, and sink, and 
rise once more gasping in agony, and go down hope- 
less ? 

“ Hoy ! Hoy ! Halloo — a man drowning !” 

“ Hah ! did you see that fellow going by, and then 
a plunge? Lend a hand, here! Somebody gone in 
drunk or crazy. Help him out.” 

Where did they come from, and what were they — 
these men that suddenly swarmed out on the wharf, 
gaunt and uncanny in the dim morning twilight? 
All had seemed deserted just now, and here were some 
dozen people looking out over the "water, getting loose 
a boat, talking, ordering, conjecturing — all intent on 
saving him who went down a moment ago. Police- 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


269 


men, stray sailors, a stall-keeper, wharf-rats, a thief 
looking for junk, a runaway apprentice, hunting for 
a vessel to carry him far from a plundered master — 
these are intent on gaining hack to life P., born heir 
to a million, and now a beggared suicide ! 

They have him at last ; water streaming from the 
bony form ; slime making tattered boots and clothes 
and unkempt hair more wretched and loathsome still ; 
his face set in some grim agony — the last mortal throe, 
when, perhaps with the water rushing in his ears, 
and choking his breath, he had realized what future 
stretched before him, long as eternity ! 

“ I know him,” said the policeman, looking curiously 
into the dead face. “ He was an uptown ‘ swell ;’ he’s 
name is Dean.” 

“ Belike he ain’t dead,” said a wharf-rat. “He 
only went in a bit ago ; maybe we can bring him to.” 

“ He belongs up here at Happy Home, kep’ by an 
old hag named Bently,” said the stall-keeper. “ He’s 
bought several drinks of me.” 

“ Let’s carry him there,” urged the apprentice, 
manfully catching hold of the water-dripping boots, 
while the sailor lifted the shoulders, the wharf-rat ran 
for a doctor, and the policeman walked alongside. 
So, early in the morning, while Mrs. Bently was first 
opening her bar-room to steal the strength and sense 


270 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


of poor day-laborers passing by, a small procession 
stopped at her door. She trembled first, at sight 
of the policeman; then, perceiving his errand, took 
courage, and cried out, “ Don’t bring that in here, to 
spoil my custom ! He don’t belong here.” 

“ He do too,” said the stall-man, stoutly. “I seen 
him here.” 

“ Take it out ; he’s in debt for his board !” screamed 
Mrs. Bently. 

“ Don’t be a brute,” said the policeman, pushing 
into the sitting-room, and pulling forward the worn 
sofa. “ Bring blankets, and make a fire. Off with 
his clothes, some of you, and treat him according to 
the laws for folk found drowned ! Here’s the doctor.” 

The doctor looked “no hope,” but he went to work 
at his patient, confiscating some of Mrs. Bently’s 
drinkables, to her great wrath, and Mrs. Jillet’s 
secret delight. 

They ceased their efforts after a time. “ No use ; 
he was dead before he came out of the water. Notify 
the coroner ; straighten him out. Woman ! can’t you 
bring me a couple of sheets, and lay him out de- 
cently ?” 

“ He’s nothing to me,” said Mrs. Bently, defiantly, 
“ and in debt for his board.” 

Mrs. Jillet, however, found a shirt and a pair of 


A MILL If N TOO MUCH. 


271 


socks. The doctor had a shutter taken from the back 
window, laid it over the rickety table where last night 
P. had played cards and drank his last dram, then 
the body was laid thereon, and in the afternoon the 
coroner came with his men, and took possession cf 
Mrs. Bently’s room. He was drowned, no doubt 
of that. Was it accidental drowning? was it deliber- 
ate suicide ? was it the result of drunkenness ? “ Sui- 
cide, likely; he looks miserable enough,” said one 
man. 

“ Drunkenness, probably ; nine-tenths of such 
deaths are the result of that,” said another. “ Such 
dens as these are as bad on population as a conta- 
gious disease.” 

Then testimony was taken, what little could be 
gathered; and, while there was a question in the 
coroner’s mind as to his verdict, Mrs. Jillet urged 

“ Don’t make it a suicide, sir ! I don’t think he 
did it a purpose. No ; he belonged to one of the 
first families in the city, and he was worth a million 
of dollars the day he was born. His house was a 
palace ; he threw his money away like dirt, sir ; he 
had everything heart could wish ; Snell’s daughter 
was engaged to him ; Pincham and Binkle were ad- 
ministrators of his estate ; he visited the finest people 


272 -4 MILLION TOO MUCH. 

of town ; Mr. Dean lie was, sir ; and had his own 
carriage not a year ago. Don’t call it suicide !” 

“ Found drowned.” Yes ; that was the way it was 
read by all the city next day. That was the way it 
reached Teddy Green’s ears the night of the inquest, 
when P.’s body lay still in the “ Happy Home,” wait- 
ing early morning interment by the city authorities. 

Teddy went for Dr. Boxwell, that they might carry 
the dead man to one of their houses — for Teddy was 
living in very respectable style now — and give it a 
becoming burial. Teddy then went to Mrs. Bently’s 
in haste, while the doctor was to follow with a hearse, 
a coffin, and a shroud. 

Mrs. Bently was in her bar in an angry, excited 
frame of mind, declaring that “ the corpse had scared 
off her customers.” Mrs. Jillet had gone in to look 
at the body, for some reason or another, and a loud 
crash resounded through the house as Teddy’s hand 
was on the door-latch. Mrs. Jillet had been seized 
with a fit of apoplexy, and had fallen against the 
unsteady table, throwing it over. A ghastly sight 
met Teddy’s eyes ; the corpse thrown on the floor, 
the table and shutter resting upon it, and Mrs. Jillet 
prostrate, with purple face and foaming lips. 

In a few moments the doctor arrived, to render 
what aid he could to the once active housekeeper, and 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


273 


(lie undertaker came with him, to wrap the dead 
pauper in a costly shroud, and put him to sleep in 
such a coffin as had held his father and grandfather. 

As the hearse was about starting, and the carriage 
for the doctor and Teddy Green was coming up, Mrs. 
Bently grasped the doctor’s arm. “ You must give 
me a hospital certificate for her, doctor dear, and I’ll 
pack her off early in the morning. She has been 
living on my bounty this many years, and I ain’t 
going to keep her a day longer.” 

The doctor wrote the required document on a blank 
leaf from his note-book, and handed it over. “ I’ll 
send a carriage and nurse here after her. You have 
small charity, Mrs. Bently. I remember when you 
were glad enough to have her acquaintance, and you 
have followed her up ever since, until she has become 
that mass of disease.” They were looking at the un- 
happy Mrs. Jillet, who was stretched on a bed rudely 
made on the floor, and her heavy breathing resounded 
through the small room. 

While Mrs. Jillet lay thus unconscious, and the 
doctor followed to his own house the hearse that bore 
the body of P. Dean, Mrs. Bently was scrupulously 
searching the remaining effects of her quondam crony, 
and was rewarded by finding a twenty-dollar note 
sewed into the lining of her last dress. This, Mrs. 


274 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


Bently confiscated for some unexplained indebted- 
ness ; and thus, when Mrs. Jillet, once the self-satis- 
fied and self-serving housekeeper of the Dean family, 
went to the city hospital next day, she went penniless 
and in tatters. 

A funeral next day. Four bearers in a carriage ; 
Aunt Debby’s old pastor in another carriage ; then 
Miss Gale and her uncle ; next the doctor and Teddy. 
So they went to the cemetery on which wealth and 
nature had lavished adornment, to the Dean lot with 
its four graves and four grand monuments, and with a 
fifth grave yawning open, where the doctor would put 
another monument, telling that P. Dean had died, 
aged twenty-six years and six months. 

A fearful family burial-place that, where, out of five 
graves, only one holds a body laid down in good hope 
of a glorious immortality ; a very dreary place, where, 
out of five dead, you can count a vender of strong 
drink, and three of its victims ; a horrible place, where 
the suicides father and son, and the mother no less a 
suicide, sleep side by side! Full many cemeteries 
are written with these terrible tragedies of intemper- 
ance. 

The short ceremony is over, and all may go home. 
The wealthy Dean family is extinct, destroyed by 
that whereon it rose to splendor. It was built up on 


A MILLION TOO MUCH. 


275 


woes and curses and ruined souls, and they are all its 
history ! 

* * * * * * * 
Miss Gale sat at breakfast at the old doctor’s table ; 
he was stirring his coffee, and reading the morning 
paper. He laid it down and looked at Miss Gale, 
and Miss Gale’s uncle. “ Here is a story of retribu- 
tion,” he said. “ It was rather late in life that I 
began to consider my religious duties, or look into 
the ways of Providence ; but, in a dozen years I have 
seen a good many especial providences, and some 
judgments falling heavily in this life.” The doctor 
was aged, and given to prosing, but his guests were 
indulgent. He took up his paper and searched for a 
paragraph, then read aloud : — 

“ ‘ A miserable groggery on Water street, called the 
Happy Home Hotel, kept by a Mrs. Bently, was 
burned at eleven o’clock last evening. A boy, who 
slept under the counter in the bar-room, escaped. Mrs. 
Bently being probably too drunk to arouse easily, was 
burned to death. It was not known that she was in 
the house until it was too late to rescue her.’ ” It 
was savagely added, most likely by the hand of Teddy 
Green : “ If all the other groggeries of this descrip- 
tion which the city boasts, and their incorrigible 
keepers, met a like fate, it would result in an immense 


276 


A MILLION TOC MUCH. 


saving of the life and property yearly destroyed by 
them.” 

“ Yes,” said the doctor, “ that is retribution. First 
and last, that woman was the ruin of our unfortunate 
friend.” 

“ There were so many agents in his ruin,” said 
Miss Gale, “ that we cannot lay the whole burden 
upon one of them.” 

“ Poor fellow ! poor fellow !” sighed the old gentle- 
man. u He had a hard time in life ; he was destroyed 
by having everything he wanted, and no restraint that 
he needed; he was born Heir to a Million too Much.” 


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$25.00; full seal grained Russia, limp, round corners, in Russia 
case to match, $25.00. 

The excellent idea of the editor of these choice volumes has been most 
admirably carried out, as will be seen by the list of authors upon all sub- 
jects. Sd.-cting smne choice passages of the best standard authors, each of suffi- 
cient length to occupy half an hour in its perusal, there is here food for 
thought for every day in the year: so that if the purchaser will devote but 
one-half hour each day to its appropriate selection he will read through 
these six volumes in one year, ami in such a leisurely manner that the 
ncblest thoughts of many of the greatest minds will he firmly in his mind 
forever. For every Sunday there is a suitable selection from some of the 
most eminent writers in sacred literature. We venture to say if the editor’s 
idea is carried out the reader will possess more and b tter knowledge of the 
English classics at the end of the year than he would by live years of desul- 
tory reading. 

They can be commenced at any day in the year. The variety of reading 
is so great that no one will ever tire of these volumes. It is a library in 
itself. 

THE POETRY OF OTHER LANDS. A Collection of Transla- 
tions into English Verse of the Poetry of Other Languages, 
Ancient and Modern. Compiled by N. Clemmons Hunt. 
Containing translations from the Greek, Latin, Persian, Ara- 
bian, Japanese, Turkish, Servian, Russian, Bohemian, Polish, 
Dutch, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese 
languages. 12mo. Cloth, extra, gilt edges, $2.50 ; half calf, gilt, 
marbled edges, $4.00; Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $6.00. 

“Another of the publications of Porter & Coates, called ‘The Poetry of 
Other Lands,’ compiled by N. Clemmons Hunt, we most warmly commend. 
It is one of the best collections we have, seen, containing many exquisite 
poems and fragments of verse which have not before been put into hook 
form in English words. We find many of the old favorites, which appear 
in every well-selected collection of sonnets and songs, and we miss others, 
which seem a necessity to complete the bouquet of grasses and flower.^ 
some of which, from time to time, we hope to republish in the ‘Courier. 
Cincinnati Conner. 

“A book of rare excellence, because it gives a collection of choice gems in 
many languages not available to the general lover of poetry. It contains 
translations from the Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabian, Japanese, Turkish, 
Servian, Russian, Bohemian, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, French, 
Spanish, and Portuguese languages. The book will be an admirable com- 
panion volume to anyone of the collections of Engbsh poetry that are now 
published. With the full index of authors immediately preceding the Col- 
lection, and the arrangement of the poems under headings, the reader will 
find it convenient for reference. It is a gift that will be more valued by 
very many than some of the transitory ones at these holiday times.”— 
Philadelphia Methodist. 


6 


PORTER & COATES 1 ' PUBLICATIONS. 


THE FIRESIDE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF POETRY. Edited by 
Henry T. Coates. This is the latest, and beyond doubt the 
best collection of poetry published. Printed on fine paper and 
illustrated with thirteen steel engravings and fifteen title 
pages, containing portraits of prominent American poets and 
fac-similes of their handwriting, made expressly for this book. 
8vo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, gilt edges, $5.00; half calf, 
gilt, marbled edges, $7.50; half morocco, full gilt edges, $7.50; 
full Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $10.00; tree calf, gilt edges, 
$12.00; plush, padded side, nickel lettering, $14.00. 

“The editor shows a wide acquaintance with the most precious treasures 
of English verse, and has gathered the most admirable specimens of their 
ample wealth. Many pieces which have been passed by in previous collec- 
tions hold a place of honor in the present volume, and will be heartily wel- 
comed by the lovers of poetry as a delightful addition to their sources of 
enjoyment. It is a volume rich in solace, in entertainment, in inspiration, 
of which the possession may well be coveted by every lover of poetry. The 
pictorial illustrations of the work are in keeping with its poetical contents, 
t 1 the beauty of the typographical execution entitles it to a place among 

e choicest ornaments of the library .” — New York Tribune. 

“Lovers of good poetry will find this one of the richest collections ever 
made. All the best singers in our language are represented, and the selec- 
tions are generally those which reveal their highest qualities The 

lights and shades, the finer play of thought and imagination belonging to 
individual authors, are broughUont in this way (by the arrangement of 
poems under subject-headings) as they would not be under any other sys- 
tem We are deeply impressed with the keen appreciation of poetical 

worth, and also with the good taste manifested by the compiler.” — Church- 
man. 

“Cvclopsedias of poetry are numerous, but for sterling value of its contents 
for the library, or as a book of reference, no work of the kind will compare 
with this admirable volume of Mr. Coates It takes the gems from many 
volumes, culling with rare skill and judgment .” — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF POETRY. Compiled by Henry 
T. Coates. Containing over 500 poems carefully selected 
from the works of the best and most popular writers for chil- 
dren ; with nearly 200 illustrations. The most complete col- 
lection of poetry for children ever published. 4to. Cloth, 
extra, black and gold, gilt side and edges, $3.00; full Turkey 
morocco, gilt edges, $7.50. 

“This seems to us the best book of poetry for children in existence. We 
have examined many other collections, but we cannot name another that 
deserves to be compared with this admirable compilation .” — Worcester Spy. 

“The special value of the book lies in the fact that, it nearly or quite 
covers the entire field. There is not a great deal of good poetry which has 
been written for children that cannot be found in this book. The collection 
is particularly strong in ballads and tales, which are apt to interest children 
more than poems of other kinds; and Mr. Coates has shown good judgment 
in supplementing this department with some of the best poems of that class 
that have been written for grown people. A surer method of forming the 
taste of children for good and pure literature than by reading to them from 
any portion of this book can hardly be imagined. The volume is richly 
illustrated and beautifully bound .” — Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 

“A more excellent volume cannot be found. We have found within the 
covers of vhis handsome volume, and upon its fair pages, many of the most 
exquisite poems which our language contains. It must become a standard 
volume, and can never grow old or obsolete.” — Episcopal Recorder. 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


7 


THE COMPLETE WORKS OF THOS. HOOD. With engravings 
on steel. 4 vols., 12mo., tinted paper. Poetical Works ; Up 
the Rhine; Miscellanies and Hood’s Own; Whimsicalities, 
Whims, and Oddities. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $6.00; 
red cloth, paper label, gilt top, uncut edges, $6.00; half calf, 
gilt, marbled edges, $14.00 ; half Russia, gilt top, $18.00. 

Hood’s verse, whether serious or comic — whether serene like a cloudless 
autumn evening or sparkling with puns like a frosty January midnight 
with stars — was ever pregnant with materials for the thought. Like every 
author distinguished for true comic humor, there w r as a deep vein of melan- 
choly pathos running through his mirth, and even when his sun shone 
brightly its light seemed often reflected as if only over the rim of a cloud. 

Well may we say, in the words of Tennyson, “Would he could have 
stayed with us.” for never could it be more truly recorded of any one — in 
the words of Hamlet characterizing Yorick — that “he was a ftdlow of in- 
finite jest, of most excellent fancy.” D. M. Moir. 

THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH 
BLANK VERSE. By Edward, Earl of Derby. From 
the latest London edition, with all the author’s last revisions 
and corrections, and with a Biographical Sketch of Lord 
Derby, by R. Shelton Mackenzie, D.C.L. With twelve 
steel engravings from Flaxman’s celebrated designs. 2 vols., 
12mo. Cloth, extra, bev. boards, gilt top, $3.50; half calf, gilt, 
marbled edges, $7.00; half Turkey morocco, gilt top, $7.00. 

The same. Popular edition. Two vols. in one. 12mo. Cloth, 
extra, $1 50. 

“It must equally be considered a splendid performance; and for the pres- 
ent we have no hesitation in saying that it is by far the best representation 
of Homer’s Iliad in the English language.”— London Times. 

“The merits of Lord Derby’s translation may be summed up in one word, 
it is eminently attractive; it is instinct with life ; it may be read with fervent 
interest; it is immeasurably nearer than Pope to the text of the original. . 

. . . Lord Derby has given a version far more closely allied to the original, 
and superior to any that has yet been attempted in the blank verse of our 
language .”— Edinburg Review. 

THE WORKS OF FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS. Comprising the Anti- 
quities of the Jews; a History of the Jewish Wars, and a Life 
of Flavius Josephus, written by himself. Translated from the 
original Greek, by William Whiston, A.M. Together with 
numerous explanatory Notes and seven Dissertations concern- 
ing Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, James the Just, God’s com- 
mand to Abraham, etc., with an Introductory Essay by Rev. 
H. Stebbing, D.D. 8vo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, plain 
edges, $3.00; cloth, red, black and gold, gilt edges, $4.50; sheep, 
marbled edges, $3.50; Turkey morocco, gilt edges, $8.00. 

This is the largest type one volume edition published. 

THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE EGYPTIANS, CARTHA- 
GINIANS, ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, MEDES AND 
PERSIANS, GRECIANS AND .MACEDONIANS. Including 
a History of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients. By 
Charles Rollin. With a Life of the Author, by James 
Bell. 2 vols., royal 8vo. Sheep, marbled edges, per set, $6.^ 


8 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


COOKERY FROM EXPERIENCE. A Practical Guide for House- 
keepers in the Preparation of Every-day Meals, containing 
more than One Thousand Domestic Recipes, mostly tested by 
Personal Experience, with Suggestions for Meals, Lists of 
Meats and Vegetables in Season, etc. By Mrs. Sara T. Paul*. 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. 

Interleaved Edition. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.75. 

THE COMPARATIVE EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
Both Versions in One Book. 

The proof readings of our Comparative Edition have been gone 
over by so many competent proof readers, that we believe the text 
is absolutely correct. 

Large 12mo., 700 pp. Cloth, extra, plain edges, $1.50; cloth, 
extra, bevelled boards and carmine edges, $1.75 ; imitation panelled 
calf, yellow edges, $2.00; arabesque, gilt edges, $2.50; French mo- 
rocco, limp, gilt edges, $4.00; Turkey morocco, limp, gilt edges, 
$ 6 . 00 . 

The Comparative New Testament has been published by Porter & Coates. 
In parallel columns on each page are given the old and new versions of the 
Testament, divided also as far as practicable into comparative verses, so that 
it is almost impossible for the slightest new word to escape the notice of 
either the ordinary reader or the analytical student. It is decidedly the 
best edition yet published of the most interest-exciting literary production 
of the day. No more convenient form for comparison could be devised 
either for economizing time or labor. Another feature is the foot-notes, 
and there is also given in an appendix the various words and expressions 
preferred by the American members of the Revising Commission. The 
work is handsomely printed on excellent paper with clear, legible type. It 
contains nearly 700 pages. 

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO. By Alexandre Dumas. 
. Complete in one volume, with two illustrations by George G. 
White. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. 

THE THREE GUARDSMEN. By Alexandre Dumas. Com- 
plete in one volume, with two illustrations by George G. 
White. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. 

There is a magic influence in his pen, a magnetic attraction in his descrip- 
tions, a fertility in his literary resources which are characteristic of Dumas 
alone, and the seal of the master of light literature is set upon all his works. 
Even when not strictly historical, his romances give an insight into the 
habits and modes of thought and action of the people of the time described, 
which are not offered in any other author’s productions. 

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. By Sir Edward Bulwer 
Lytton, Bart. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and 
gold, $1.00. Alta edition, one illustration, 75 cts. 

JANE EYRE. By Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell). New Li- 
brary Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. Wimperis. 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. 

SHIRLEY. By Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell). New Library 
Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. Wimperis. 12mo. 
Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


9 


VILLETTE. By Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell). New Library 
Edition. With five illustrations by E. M. Wimperis. 12mo. 
Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. 

THE PROFESSOR, EMMA and POEMS. By Charlotte Bronte 
(Currer Bell). New Library Edition. With five illustrations 
by E. M. Wimperis. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.00. 

Cloth, extra, black and gold, per set, $4.00; red cloth, paper 
label, gilt top, uncut edges, per set, $5.00 ; half calf, gilt, per set, 
$12.00. The four volumes forming the complete works of Char- 
lotte Bronte (Currer Bell). 

The wondrous power of Currer Bell’s stories consists in their fiery insight 
into the human heart, their merciless dissection ot passion, and their stern 
analysis of character and motive. The style of these productions possesses 
incredible force, sometimes almost grim in its bare severity, then relapsing 
into passages of melting pathos— -always direct, natural, and effective in its 
unpretending strength. They exhibit the identity which always belongs to 
works of genius by the same author, though without the slightest approach 
to monotony. The characters portrayed by Currer Bell all have a strongly 
marked individuality. Once brought before the imagination, they haunt 
the memory like a strange dream. The sinewy, muscular strength of her 
writings guarantees their permanent duration, and thus far they have lost 
nothing of their intensity of interest since the period of their composition. 

CAPTAIN JACK THE SCOUT; or, The Indian Wars about Old 
Fort Duquesne. An Historical Novel, with copious notes. 
By Charles McKnight. Illustrated with eight engravings. 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. 

A work of such rare merit and thrilling interest as to have been repub- 
lished both in England and Germany. This genuine American historical 
work has been received with extraordinary popular favor, and has “won 
golden opinions from all sorts of people” for its freshness, its forest life, and 
its fidelity to truth. In many instances it even corrects History and uses 
the drapery of fiction simply to enliven and illustrate the fact. 

It is a universal favorite with both sexes, and with all ages and condi- 
tions, and is not only proving a marked and notable success in this country, 
but has been eagerly taken up abroad and republished in London, England, 
and issued iu two volumes in the far-famed “Tauchnetz Edition ” of Leipsic, 
Germany. 

ORANGE BLOSSOMS, FRESH AND FADED. By T. S. Arthur, 
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. 

“Orange Blossoms” contains a number of short stories of society. Like 
all of Mr. Arthur’s works, it has a special moral purpose, and is especially 
addressed to the young who have just entered the marital experience, whom 
it pleasantly warns against those social and moral pitfalls into which they 
may almost innocently plunge. 

THE BAR ROOMS AT BRANTLEY; or, The Great Hotel Spec- 
ulation. By T. S. Arthur. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, 
black and gold, $1.50. 

, “One of the best temperance stories recently issued.”— A. Y. Commercial 
Advertiser. 

“Although it is in the form of a novel, its truthful delineation of charac- 
ters is such that in every village in the land you meet the broken manhood 
it pictures upon the streets, and look upon sad, tear-dimmed eyes of women 
and children. The characters are not. overdrawn, but are as truthful as an 
artist’s pencil could make them.” — Inter-Ocean, Chicago. 


10 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


EMMA. By Jane Austen. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, 
$1.25. 

MANSFIELD PARK. By Jane Austen. Illustrated. 12mo. 
Cloth, extra, $1.25. 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE; and Northanger Abbey. By Jane 
Austen. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.25. 

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY ; and Persuasion. By Jane Austen. 
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.25. 

The four volumes, forming the complete works of Jane Austen, 
in a neat box: Cloth, extra, per set, $5.00 ; red cloth, paper label, 
gilt top, uncut edges, $5.00 ; half calf, gilt, per set, $12.00. 

“Jane Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. In her novels 
she has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, common- 
place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discrimi- 
nated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. 

. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude 
analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them 
to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed.”— Ma- 
caulay's Essays. 

ART AT HOME. Containing in one volume House Decoration, 
by Rhoda and Agnes Garrett; Plea for Art in the House, 
by W. J. Loftie; Music, by John HuLLAH;and Dress, by 
Mrs. Oliphant. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. 

TOM BROWN’S SCHOOL DAYS AT RUGBY. By Thomas 
Hughes. New Edition, large clear type. With 36 illustra- 
tions after Caldecott and others. 12mo., 400 pp. Cloth, extra, 
black and gold, $1.25; half calf, gilt, $2.75. 

Alta Edition. One illustration, 75 cents. 

“It is difficult to estimate the amount of good which may be done by 
‘Tom Brown’s School Days.’ It gives, in the main, a most faithful and 
interesting picture of our public schools, the most English institutions of 
England, and which educate the best and most powerful elements in our 
upper classes. But it is more than this; it is an attempt, a very noble and 
successful attempt, to Christianize the society of our youth, through the 
only practicable channel— hearty and brotherly sympathy with their feel- 
ings; a book, in short, which a father might well wish to see in the hands 
of "his son.” — London Times. 

TOM BROWN AT OXFORD. By Thomas Hughes. Illustrated, 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50 ; half calf, gilt, $3.00. 

“ Fairly entitled to the rank and dignity of an English classic. Plot, style 
and truthfulness are of the soundest British character. Racy, idiomatic, 
mirror-like, alwavs interesting, suggesting thought on the knottiest social 
and religious questions, now deeply moving by its unconscious pathos, and 
anon inspiring uproarious laughter, it i9 a work the world will not willingly 
let die,” — N. Y. Christian Advocate. 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


11 


SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE OF THE BEST SOCIETY. By Mrs. 
H; O. Ward. Customs, manners, morals, and home culture 
with suggestions how to word notes and letters of invitations’ 
acceptances, and regrets, and general instructions as to calls’ 
rules for watering places, lunches, kettle drums, dinners re- 
ceptions, weddings, parties, dress, toilet and manners, saluta- 
tions, introductions, social reforms, etc., etc. Bound in cloth 
with gilt edge, and sent by mail, postage paid, on receipt of 


LADIES’ AND GENTLEMEN’S ETIQUETTE: A Complete 
Manual of the Manners and Dress of American Society. Con- 
taining forms of Letters, Invitations, Acceptances, and Regrets. 
With a copious index. By E. B. Duffey. 12mo. Cloth 
extra, black and gold, $1.50. 

“It is peculiarly an American book, especially adapted to our people, and 
its greatest beauty is found in the fact that in every line and precept it in- 
culcates the principles ol true politeness, instead of those formal rules that 
serve oniy to gild the surface without affecting the substance. It is admir- 
ably written, the style being clear, terse, and forcible.”— St. Louis Times. 


THE UNDERGROUND CITY; or, The Child of the Cavern. 
By Jules Verne. Translated from the French by W. H. 
Kingston. With 43 illustrations. Standard Edition. 12mo.' 
Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50. 


AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. By Jules Verne. 
Translated by Geo. M. Towle. With 12 full-page illustrations! 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. 

AT THE NORTH POLE ; or, The Voyages and Adventures of 
Captain Hatteras. By Jules Verne. With 130 illustrations 
by Riou. Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and 
gold, $1.25. 


THE DESERT OF ICE ; or, The Further Adventures of Captain 
Hatteras. By Jules Verne. With 126 illustrations by Riou. 
Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. 

TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEAS; or, 
The Marvellous and Exciting Adventures of Pierre Aronnax, 
Conseil his servant, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner. By 
Jules Verne. Standard Edition. Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth, 
extra, black and gold, $1.25. 

THE WRECK OF THE CHANCELLOR, Diary of J. R. Kazallon, 
Passenger, and Martin Paz. By Jules Verne. Translated 
from the French by Ellen Frewer. With 10 illustrations. 
Standard Edition. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.25. 

Jules Verne is so well known that the mere announcement of anything 
from his pen is sufficient to create a demand for it. One of his chief merits 
is the wonderful art with which he lays under contribution every branch of 
science and natural history, while he vividly describes with minute exact- 
ness all parts of the world and its inhabitants. 


12 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS; or, Mirth and Marvels. By 
Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq.). New 
edition, printed from entirely new stereotype plates. Illus- 
trated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50; half calf, 
gilt, marbled edges, $3.00. 

“Of his poetical powers it is not too much to say that, for originality of 
design and diction, for grand illustration and musical verse, they are not 
surpassed in the English language. The Witches’ Frolic is second only to 
Tam O’Shanter. But why recapitulate the titles of either prose or verse — 
since they have been confessed by every judgment to be singularly rich in 
classic allusion and modern illustration. From the days of Hudibras to pur 
time the drollery invested in rhymes has never been so amply or felicitously 
exemplified.” — Bentley's Miscellany. 

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. By Samuel C. Warren, author of 
“ The Diary of a London Physician.” A new edition, care- 
fully revised, with three illustrations by George G. White. 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1 50. 

“Mr. Warren has taken a lasting place among the imaginative writers of 
this period of English history. He possesses, in a remarkable manner, the 
tenderness of heart and vividness of feeling, as well as powers of description, 
which are essential to the delineation of the pathetic, and which, when 
existing in the degree in which be eujovs them, fill his pages with scenes 
which can never be forgotten .”— Sir Archibald Alison. 

THOMPSON’S POLITICAL ECONOMY; With Especial Refer- 
ence to the Industrial History of Nations. By Prof. R. E. 
Thompson, of the University of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth, 
extra, $1.50. 

This book possesses an especial interest at the present moment. The 
questions of Free Trade and Protection are before the country more directly 
than at any earlier period of our history. As a rule the works and text- 
books. used in our American colleges are either of English origin or teach 
Doctrines of a political economy which, as Walter Bagehot says, was made 
for England. Prof. Thompson belongs to the Nationalist School of Econo- 
mists, to which Alexander Hamilton, Tench Coxe, Henry Clay Matthew 
Carey, and his greater son, Henry C. Carey, Stephen Colwell, and James 
Abram Garfield were adherents. He believes in that policy of Protection 
to American industry which has had the sanction of every great American 
statesman, not excepting Thomas Jetferson and John C. Calhoun. He makes 
lus appeal to history in defence of that policy, showing that wherever a 
weaker or less advanced country has practiced Fre3 Trade with one more 
powerful or richer, the former has lost its industries as well as its money 
and has become economically dependent on the latter. Those who wish 
to learn what is the real source of Irish poverty and discontent will find it 
here stated fully. 

The method of the book is historical. It is therefore no series of dry and 
abstract reasonings, such as repel readers from hooks of this cla-s. The 
writer does not ride the a priori nag, and say “this must be so,” and “that 
must, be conceded.” He snows what has been true, and seeks to elicit the 
laws of the science from the experience of the world. The book overflows 
with facts told in an interesting manner. 

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE IN ITS THREE HOMES, and the 
Practical Bearings of general European History. By Edward 
A. Freeman, LL.D., Author of the “ Norman Conquest of 
England.” 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.75. 









12 


PORTER & COATES’ PUBLICATIONS. 


THE INGOLDSBY LEGENDS; or, Mirth and Marvels. By 
Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby, Esq.). New 
edition, printed from entirely new stereotype plates. Illus- 
trated. 12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1.50; half calf, 
gilt, marbled edges, $3.00. 

“Of his poetical powers it is not too much to say that, for originality of 
design and diction, for grand illustration and musical verse, they are not 
surpassed in the English language. The Witches’ Frolic is second only to 
Tain O'Shanter. But why recapitulate the titles of either prose or verse — 
since they have been confessed by every judgment to be singularly rich in 
classic allusion and modern illustration. From the days of Hudibras to pur 
time the drollery invested in rhymes has never been so amply or felicitously 
exemplified.” — Bentley's Miscellany. 

TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. By Samuel C. Warren, author of 
“The Diary of a London Physician.” Anew edition, care- 
fully revised, with three illustrations by George G. White. 
12mo. Cloth, extra, black and gold, $1 50. 

“Mr. Warren has taken a lasting place among the imaginative writers of 
this period of English history. He possesses, in a remarkable manner, the 
tenderness of heart and vividness of fueling, as well as powers of description, 
which are essential to the delineation of the pathetic, and which, when 
existing in the degree in which he eujovs them, fill his pages with scenes 
which can never be forgotten .”— Sir Archibald Alison. 

THOMPSON’S POLITICAL ECONOMY; With Especial Refer- 
ence to the Industrial History of Nations. By Prof. R. E. 
Thompson, of the University of Pennsylvania. 12mo. Cloth, 
extra, $1.50. 

This book possesses an especial interest at the present moment. The 
questions of Free Trade and Protection are before the country more, directly 
than at any earlier period of our history. As a rule the works and text- 
books used in our American colleges are either of English origin or teach 
Doctrines of a political economy which, as Walter Bagehot says, was made 
for England. Prof. Thompson belongs to the Nationalist School of Econo- 
niistb, to which Alox&odcr Hamilton, Tench Ooxe, Henry 01<iy, Matthew 
Carey, and his greater son, Henry C. Carey, Stephen Colwell, and James 
Abram Garfield were adherents. He believes in that policy of Protection 
to American industry which has had the sanction of everv great American 
statesman, not excepting Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun. He makes 
his appeal to history in defence of that policy, showing that wherever a 
weaker or less advanced country has practiced Free Trade with one more 
powerful or richer, the former has lost its industries as well as its money 
and has become economically dependent on the latter. Those who wish 
to learn what is the real source of Irish poverty and discontent will find it 
here stated fully. 

The method of the book is historical. It is therefore no series of dry and 
abstract reasonings, such as repel readers from hooks of this cla-s. The 
writer does not ride the, a priori nag, and say “ this must be so,” and “ that 
must be conceded.” He snows what has been true, and seeks to elicit the 
laws of the science from the experience of the world. The book overflows 
with facts told in an interesting manner. 

THE ENGLISH PEOPLE IN ITS THREE HOMES, and the 
Practical Bearings of general European History. By Edward 
A. I reeman, LL.D., Author of the “Norman Conquest of 
England.” 12mo. Cloth, extra, $1.75. 



















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